Overwatch: Team Fortress
by SweetBrownie
Summary: Winston finds cryo-beds with the merceneries from the team fortress 2. The mysteries of them thickens as there is almost no information about them anywhere. (Republishing an old story. Rated M)
1. Prologue

**This is a story that I posted quite a while ago, and then took down. I am republishing it now, with even more chapters that I originally have showen. I'm not done with it yet, but am done with at least part one of it. Part one is the prolouge and from chapter 1 to 5, and is quite long. I will publishe them as fast as I can correct them from spellerrors and such.**

 **UPDATE (20th July, 2018): This chapter, together with the nexcoming chapters, have been corrected by the talented ShizzySavage16. Thank you, Shizzy!**

* * *

 _L_ _ate march, 2082_

 _Location: Somewhere in the most northern part of Russia..._

Winston stood by the entrance without moving an inch, his eyes focused on the cryo-beds in the room.

His interest of the content in this room grows with every minute... ever since he found the damaged files about _them_ in an old even more damaged hard drive. This is a bunker that, prior to his entry only hours before, have been unknown and forgotten since the First World War. It has been a secret safe bunker back then, and has been used as one again during the Second World War.

But after that, it has been refitted for something else...

The hard drive that he had found and succeeded to get access to has been given to him from an old historical museum. The staff in the museum have found the hard drive hidden away behind much other historical objects and document in their archive after a raid there of Talon agents — Widowmaker and Reaper.

Since none of the staff had any knowledge of how to extract any information out of the hard drive that Winston found, the ape in turn has discreetly took it of their hands as a promise to get the information out for them.

It is so that two terrorists — Widowmaker and Reaper — have made many raids lately on different locations, mostly to gain different weapons that they and other of their likes are to use for their foul deeds.

One of these raids have for example, been on Winston's own hiding spot in the abandoned Watchpoint of Gibraltar, in an attempt to try and gain information of past Overwatch operatives from his database.

Another example was on the museum that is dedicated to Overwatch itself, the reasoning behind this was to get access to the weapons that were stored there (Doomfist's Fist Gauntlet).

Fortunately, they didn't succeed thanks to the combined efforts of Winston and Overwatch agent — Tracer.

After these raids... it just appeared as _strange_ to Winston that Widowmaker and Reaper would search for effective weapons in a historical museum that is of the _two world wars:_ The Vietnam War and other wars in the same time period.

The technology in this specific museum was completely outdated compared to today's equivalent. When the hard drive was found though, a mystery that has been hidden away even from the staff... the great ape gets the feeling that the information contained within might have something to do with it.

The technology of the hard drive is from the 1970's, outdated and inefficient to today's technologies. It can even be compared to the tools of the stone-age according to Winston, and extracting the information from the device has been a pain with the means available. He has had to make a custom device of his own, recreating some from that time's technologies to make it possible.

He did it.. And what he had found surprised him greatly.

It was information about 8 soldiers from the worried times during the Vietnam war, frozen down to be preserved in case if needed later...

But the fact that these 8 soldiers may have even been around for the Vietnam war was in itself — _uncertain._

Winston didn't really know why these 8 have been frozen and put into stasis... so much of the information couldn't be understood due to damages files.

The ape was quite disappointed to have found out that the hard drive sustained injury from the raid.

He has only made assumptions while he tried to understand the little information he has been able to extract.

The need, _whatever that need have been,_ has obviously never arrived.

These eight have been forgotten since long then.

When Winston found this specific piece of information, and learned where these cryo-beds were, he has taken it to the only Overwatch carrier plane that Overwatch had left, and has traveled here immediately.

 _"Winston!"_ Comes a voice behind him.

He turns around to see Mei approach in a light jog, _"I came as fast as I could."_ She panted out. She stopped in front of him and smiles up at the giant, "It's a good thing that Overwatch helped to take me here... Maybe we can travel together next time, yes?"

The great ape has taken contact with Mei over a cryptic overwatch comlink shortly after his arrival here.

He has told her about his findings and instructed her to meet him here.

Mei had great knowledge in cryo-technique, and has also successfully been able to freeze herself without the use of advanced cryo-technology itself. She has been able to survive a polar storm together with a few other scientists. They had researched on the different climate phenomenon that has been occurring over the whole world; like why there is _**snowfall**_ in the _Sahara_ , why the Antarctic is melting and why the jungles are drying out...

Another... is that most of Russia has been doomed to a long winter that had spanned for several decades...

And that's only mentioning a few _extreme_ examples...

Mei's group has been stuck in Watchpoint Antarctica due to the severe storm, and the rations have slowly disappeared in wait for a rescue.

After some time and some panic, her group quickly realized, and made the decision to sleep in cryo-beds until rescue... it was their only hope for survival...

 _Well... **Mei's** survival._

Unfortunately, she was the only one out of her group that came out of the cryo-technology _alive..._

"Of course," Winston responded to Mei, "We can travel together next time if the opportunity presents itself." He then moved from the open entrance, "Please, take a look."

Mei entered the room and began to look around.

"This technology, Winston," she muttered, _"... It's very old..._ Do you really think it still works?" She asked skeptically.

"I hope so," The great ape said as he stood near the entrance, "See what you can find." He inquired.

Winston has been very surprised over the information he have found.

Cryo-technology has existed in the early 1970's and have first been profound!

But after he had seen it himself... _well,_ he had to believe it.

He had then thought that this technology, even with how old it might be, can still be of use to either Mei or himself. Maybe even to D. Va and her mechsuit... Whoever that had this technology way back might provide with some kind of breakthrough that today's scientists haven't even thought of.

"Have you taken a look on this?" Asks Mei after a while, tinkering with a panel that is connected to a big screen on the wall above it.

Winston nods, "Yes. I have found some interesting parts that I like to either study here at site, or take back to base with me if possible. But I haven't touched much. I didn't want to disturb it until you have gotten a good look at this too."

Mei observed the panel in deep thought, "... By the looks of this panel it seems like they tried to keep _someone_ alive for a long time, but I can't get out much more from just looking at it like this. I need to take a look among the circuits and see if I can find any indication of a storage unit." She then goes ahead and removes an ajar hatch from under the panel.

Winston enters the room for a second time that day.

He approaches one of the cryo-beds. He observed them this close the first time he entered the room, but then he swiftly moved along.

He wouldn't want to remove the thick layer of dust and frost from them in fear of how the ones lying in there have faired.

 _They are most certainly dead._

The technology that was to sustain them should have given up _decades_ ago, and he wouldn't want to remind Mei of her earlier experience of this more than necessary.

The thought of this might even aggravate her past memories while doing this... it crossed Winston's mind when he decided to take contact with her about this, but contrary to his beliefs she didn't sound fazed at all over the commlink.

Not even now, when she entered the room or works with the technology she had been affected in the past by.

Winston wondered if it was truly so, that she is unfazed by the cryo-technology... _or does she just hide it very well?_

All of her group members have died on that fateful day, and she herself was to bear the burden.

And the work that she and her team have been working on?

 _Unfinished and disrupted._

Winston glanced at Mei, to see if there is any notion of how she feels about it.

However, she doesn't notice his glance. She is too concentrated on her work.

There's no signs of any negative emotions, but the great ape can't help but _wonder..._

He looks back at the cryo-beds again.

He reaches with his massive hand and wipes the dust and frost away from the surface, and leaves a small window where he can see in...

... There lies a carcass, half decayed but still frozen.

Winston guessed that the cryo-bed might have been heated during a certain time, and that it has the body a chance to break down, then the whole bunker's power have failed, therefore freezing the body again.

The body looks like it had some kind of gasmask over it's face and head.

 _Winston can't stop himself from wondering if this is how Mei's co-workers might've looked like..._

"I think that I can actually get this station going," Mei pipes up, interrupting the great ape's thought process, _"If only I can get a power source to get it functioning from within this room..."_ She said disappointingly, "... Any suggestions on how we can do that?"

Winston scratches his face in thought, "Hmm... I think I can connect the extra battery in the carrier plane we came with separately," He answers after a moment, "I have a few spare cables with me too."

Ten minutes later, the extra battery has been removed from the carrier plane and had been brought to the room with the cryo-beds.

It is only to be connected with the cables to the panel in question.

"Ready?" Mei asked, facing the great ape, the end of the cables that are to be attached to the battery firmly in her hands.

After a short second in observation of her, Winston answers. "Ready," He nods. _"Let's see if this works."_ He mutters hopefully.

She crouches and attaches the cables to the battery.

The second after sparks sprays from the open hatch. Winston instinctually grabs Mei out of the way and puts his hefty body between her and the light.

The sparks then come to an abrupt stop, and instead, the huge screen lights up with a distinct green light.

The duo looks up at it in amazement. Winston was frozen where he stood while Mei was in an effort to peak over his big frame.

 _"It works,"_ She speaks in wonder.

"It seems so," He confirms with a similar tone.

Mei rounds Winston and approaches the panel. She begins to push buttons as her gaze alternates between the panel and the screen.

The great ape observed the light, he has never thought that the old technology is operational after all this time.

Suddenly, Mei gasps.

Winston reacts, and takes a few worried steps towards her, "What is it?" He asks with concern.

 _"Some of them are still alive!"_ She exclaims, half in horror and half in euphoria over the discovery as she turns towards the cryo-beds.

Winston picks up somewhere in the back of his mind of the horror in her voice, and wonders if it is from recognition of the situation and sympathy towards the ones alive.

He makes a mental note to ask her about it later.

Now though, he looks over the cryo-beds with an uneasy feeling inside... He closes in on one, the body of the one that is beside another, he had already checked.

He wipes away the frost and the dust, and reveals that what Mei have said to be true; _some of the eight people that have been frozen down in the early 1970's are in fact — **still alive.**_

* * *

 _Late March, 2082_

 _Location: Somewhere in the Atlantic sea..._

Widowmaker and Reaper observed their boss with caution.

The figure in the chair is faced away from them, looking towards the big window that had a beautiful view of the cyan blue Atlantic sea. There wouldn't be much of a contrast between the sea and the sky if it wasn't for some of the white clouds in the distance. The rocky walls that cover the outer walls of the secret base peeks out around the window, and frames the view like a picture. The shiny floor and walls reflects the bright light that enters, and gives the illusion that there are several copies of the window and _whatever or whoever_ that resides inside.

Aside from the chair, there is nothing inside the room except for the three people.

It had been three days since they staged a raid on the museum that held the history of the world wars. They have not dared to come back after the failure of bringing back the hard drive, for fear of what their boss would say... but they have returned, now they have been summoned by him, but the reasoning behind it is still unclear.

Widowmaker and Reaper have briefly discussed that it might be about their failed mission few days prior...

 _and they are proven right._

"Do you know what was on that hard drive?" Asks the man in the chair without turning to face the other two.

Widowmaker and Reaper observe each other.

She shrugs.

He remains neutral behind his mask.

They look back at the chair, but none of them give a vocal answer.

Even so, the man in the chair understands that both of them have answered 'no'.

He answers his own question for them with an exasperated sigh, "... On the hard drive, was the location and information of eight mercenaries… eight _possible_ allies against the shameful Overwatch..."

There was silence for a while...

 _"... Now though, these mercenaries are in the clutches of our enemies."_

Widowmaker perks an eyebrow. _"Hmph. You tell us this now?_ Why haven't we been told earlier?"

"Because I want you to _focus_ on your job; to simply _collect_ the hard drive," the man in the chair answers with rising anger. "But it seems that you two can't do that, which is _disappointing..._ I thought that you two would suffice in doing my main missions, but it seems I was mistaken." He scoffs, "... Thought that you would do a better job than Junkrat and Roadhog, but maybe that is the other way around."

 _"Those two?"_ Reaper chirps up in annoyance, first time for him to say anything on this meeting. "They're just **_idiots._** The only thing they're good for is wreaking havoc."

"My first thought exactly," Their boss speaks, "But they at least _focus_ on what they are doing, which is more than I can say for the two of you."

There is a pause, where Widowmaker and Reaper observes their boss with mild irritation.

The man in the chair starts again, this time not in anger, but rather cold and logical.

"The attack on Gibraltar was a complete waste, as well as the Overwatch museum. The only mission that succeeded was the assassination on Tekhartha Mondatta. That successfully plunged the omnic-human relationships into the gutter and created worldwide panic." The boss suddenly points on a button on one of the armrests of his chair.

The room rocks a little before it starts to sink into the water.

"Anyways," he continues as water and sea life starts to fill up the view of the window, and the Atlantic's cyan blue slowly turns to dark blue. "Three fails out of four is a bad score, and that they are the most important missions in these last 3 months is just _worse._ They happened to be important goals in my grand plan, but now I must be forced to rethink _everything..._ If you would have succeeded in all of them it would have made things a lot easier."

He finally stands up, and straightens the light grey suit that he wears. He still refuses to turn around to face the other two. There is now barely any light that comes out from the window, but the lamps in the roof provides suitable lighting.

 _"Our numbers are dwindling,"_ He states, matter-of-factly, "We need more people that are willing to _fight_ for our cause. If not, we will fail."

"What do you want us to do?" Reaper asks.

 _"Get me those mercenaries."_ He says simply.

 _"D'accord..._ But what if they side with Overwatch?" Widowmaker asks.

"Isn't that obvious? They will be of no use to me. _Kill them."_

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Rio Xingú, Brazil_

The world slowly comes back to him, and when it does, it is all in a foggy haze.

He feels himself lying down in a soft bed, and sighs at the welcoming comfort of warmth.

But even though that the thought of just laying down felt comfortable, he himself has never been much of to just be laying around...

Not when a nagging question is on his mind, anyway.

 _'What happened to me?'_ Is what he wonders first.

The way he is feeling right now... _he can mostly describe as a really bad hangover._

 _'What a crazy last night it must have been._ _It felt like Demoman and Soldier drank me under the table ten times over.'_

... Then he suddenly remembers that he doesn't usually drink, and when he does, he only drinks a small portion.

 _Has it been a special day yesterday for him to drink that much?_

Weakly, he recalls that the last wave had gone bad… _terrible._

Now that he's thinking about it some more, it has never gone worse.

And with a click in his brain, he remembers it suddenly, as it came back so fast and with such a force it might as well have been considered a mental bullet...

 **The robots have won.**

They just kept coming, not just over the hill from Gray's movable base... but from everywhere, in _infinite_ numbers.

The combined forces of the two mercenary squads have been forced to flee, and it have been a wonder that they have succeed without losing anyone, but then...

 _What happened after that?_

He stressed his mind to remember, but despite how hard he tries, he can't really regain the memories.

He forces himself to open his eyes, and he rises himself into a sitting position by pure will.

He silently curses his foggy eyesight, and blinks several times in an attempt to get back somewhat of a view of his surroundings.

He makes out a big, clean, white room. One wall opens to a massive terrace, where the man sees a lot of colorful plants on the woodwork. Beyond there is nothing but light blue sky and deep green forest. The light from the sun is shining in gracefully from the opening.

In the room, futuristic machine stands are scattered along the walls. The man is not that good with any other machines than cars, but even with his limited knowledge, he gets a feeling that what he observes are hospital equipment; Far more advanced hospital equipment than what he has ever seen though...

 _He gets a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that the machines he sees are way beyond the technology that existed when he went to sleep._

 _'Where am I?'_ The question spreads a dark feeling of uncertainty and a sense of uncertainty.

But he feels some certainty again when he sees some of his mercenary teammates in beds in the room with him, on different sides of him.

All of them are asleep, with white sheets covering their bare chests.

He stresses his eyes to get a closer look on all of them just to be sure that they all are alive, and indeed all present are breathing... except for Pyro.

In the middle of his observation though, he halts.

 _His whole posture freezes, and he can only stare._

The... _thing,_ he sees, is the massive frame of a great ape.

But the animal sitting in the very same room with man is not the cause for his reaction.

It is that the ape sits at a table near his bed, and _acts like a human,_ with glasses that is neatly seated on the wide nostrils, and with a half-eaten banana in one hand, the ape reads a document that it had in it's free grasp!

There is even more documents spread out on the table that the ape is sitting at.

The man blinks slowly a few times, bewildered before he brings his hands up to his eyes to give both of them a good rubbing.

 _But the ape is still there._

It keeps doing what it is doing.

It _READS_ the document.

 _It can READ!_

And not only that!

It has _clothes_ on, in the form of a well-fitting overall.

The man begins to doubt that he really is awake.

He pinches his own arm, _hard..._ He is amazed to find that he feels the pain.

After that, he has no real idea on what to do. He figured he had to say something and open his mouth, but no sound agrees to come out.

 _What is he supposed to say to an ape?_

The result is that the man sits there with his mouth open, with a puzzled pair of eyes and a face full of uncertainty. He must have stayed like that for five whole minutes.

A moan is suddenly heard to the man's right, and he glances that way without really moving his head.

In the corner of his eye, he see's Scout in the bed beside him.

The young boy moves a bit in his sleep, then he settles down again. The man looks back at the ape, and a cold knot makes itself known when he sees that the ape is indeed looking his way.

Old habit makes him note that the best exit and only safe way out of this room is the open terrace, just in case things get ugly...

 _"Ah, Mr. Mundy,"_ The ape greets with a smile, much to the man's amazement, and puts the banana and the document down.

It's voice is deep, as massive as it's size, but there is a kindness there that is… somehow… _soothing._

It can not only read, but to _speak_ as well?

Mundy's eyes couldn't grow any bigger, and his jaw has never hung so low.

"Good morning," The ape continues. "My name is Winston."

Matthews "Mat" Mundy can't respond. For a moment he doesn't even know how to.

He never encountered anything like this, and he has encountered a lot of animals in his days. He even preferred the company of animals over the many people that he met over the years.

But no animal could do what this ape does.

"I see that you are shocked over what is in front of you," Winston continues on in an understanding tone and clasps his big hands together. The smile never leaves the ape's lips. "No animals with intellect that rivals the human race existed during your time. A lot has changed while you and your colleagues have been in cryo-sleep."

 _Cryo-sleep?_

The word triggers something in Mat. A memory wakes to life that leads to another, and then another.

A chain-reaction begins in Matthews mind as well as his feelings and sense of incomprehension for the existence of an intelligent ape, are as good as blown away.

He remembers everything now.

They didn't really escape Gray.

They have been captured by the robots, and have been brought in front of the mastermind himself.

Matthew looks down on his bare chest and arms, and sees the very thing that he don't really want to see, as it only confirms the nightmare.

Ports of cold, grey metal have been operated into his body; two on both his arms, four in his chest, and when the man slightly lifts the sheets that covers the lower part of his body he confirms that he also has two on each leg. Every port is accompanied with prominent scars too, as well as wide scars around his wrists and ankles.

The devices have been added to the mercenaries so that the cryo-beds could be connected to them by tubes. Heavy sedatives and other chemicals have helped them to survive the sleep together with the cold, or so he have been told. The combination have almost completely stopped their ageing as well. But the surgeries have been nothing but horrid. Gray had let them be operated on without anything for the pain; a small payback from Gray for all the trouble the mercenaries have caused.

Pain strikes without a warning. Mat's whole body cramped up, and a roar of pain clawed its way up his throat as the back of his head thumps back into the pillow.

The world blinked in and out, and started to spin. He feels nauseous, but mostly does he feel pain. For a moment... _one painful, long-spun moment,_ he is back on the operating table. He is in the very room that he, together with the other mercenaries, have been operated on at the same time.

The pain from the knives cutting him is unbearable as the medibots work with deadly precision on his body. There are leather straps that dig itself in his wrists and ankles. He distinctly feels additional straps over his chest and legs as well that works against his every movement. He screams through the pain, and throws the crudest curses and the most colorful imprecations he can come to think of at the unfeeling machines. But they have just kept working without a sound, nor reaction.

And the _blood..._

It was so much blood, that Mat himself thought towards the end that he might die of blood loss. But somehow, he didn't.

At some time during the operation he has thrown his head to his one side, to throw a particular rude rebuke to the bot standing there. In the process he caught a glance at Medic.

The other man had an inexpressive countenance, and his struggles have ceased. The bots that were assigned to Medic have stopped working on him...

 _Matthew instantly understands that the other man is dead._

The roar grows worse, as now there is not only one pain present... The sorrow from the loss of a friend and comrade mixes itself with the wrench from the knives.

And it is utter, _utter_ _unbearable._

There is a sudden calm that comes over Mundy.

His world gets fuzzy and unclear while the images of the memory slowly disappears, as he remembers that the room he actually is in at the moment is a completely different room than the one with the operating tables.

There are no leather straps that's holding him down, instead, there is stern but gentle hands that doesn't mean him any harm.

He sees a glimpse of a needle in one of those hands, and he knows what must have been in it.

 _Sedatives._

His thoughts gets slower and he feels his body grow heavy.

 _'They gave me sedatives.'_ He thought.

The hands let go as his movement became slower, suddenly getting to the point where he ceases his movement completely.

 _"What happened?"_

He hears someone ask through the ever growing fogginess, a woman with glasses on her little nose and with a hair-pin in her hair.

"A flashback," States another woman.

Matthew struggles, but fails miserably, to stay awake when his eyes falls on this woman.

She looks to have wings just like an angel. He is certain that his deranged mind must be playing tricks on him.

"I have a feeling that it wasn't of a very good memory," The woman continues. "I fear for his mental health... Winston, where did you say that you have found them?"

"A bunker in northern Russia," The deep tone of the ape answers. "As far as I know, they have slept in there, in those cryo-beds for a hundred years."

 _A hundred years?_

As the edges of the world starts to creep inward and finally disappear into darkness yet again Mat felt his soul shatter a bit.

 _A HUNDRED YEARS?_

 _What happened to Gray?_

 _What about his robot army?_

 _What about my parents?_

 _WHAT HAPPENED?_

He couldn't imagine that it has been a hundred years since the war with Gray.

The machines that he had seen in the room before, the ones that he had a feeling to be ahead of any technology he could think of, would be a proof of it.

But it's proof that he refuses to believe... _At least for now._

 _It just sounds too crazy, too unreal._

Right now, he would rather accept that he died and somehow gone to heaven. He spares a last glance at one of the women, and is amazed to still see the glowing white-yellow wings that comes out from her back.

 _'Yeah, heaven. I'm in heaven. Not like I expected it to be.'_ He sputters some deranged chuckles at that.

The last thing he sees is the two women and the ape giving him strange and worried looks before the darkness takes over completely.


	2. Chapter 1

**"I kinda wish medic wasn't dead. Also. Sniper has seen a talking pumpkin and fought a yeti. A talking gorilla isn't that strange." - guest**

 **Really? Then I guess that never happened in this reality... or something.**

 **"For the record. The mercs where never around during Vietnam." - guest**

 **That's of Winston thoughts. He can't be sure what might be in that bunker.**

 **Thank you all for your kind reviews. Here is the next chapter.**

 **As I have written in the first chapter I have gotten a Beta-reader. ShizzySavage16 is his/her name. Thank you for your help, Shizzy!**

* * *

 _Early April, 2087_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Mercy looks concerned.

 _Way too concerned for Winton's liking._

Mercy is usually the calm one... she's the calmest there is.

Armageddon can come down to earth and burn everything in it, _and she would still be calm._

It's a strength that Winston highly admires in her, a strength that had never cracked… until today, when the man known only as Mundy, or by his call-sign 'Sniper', wakes up for the first time.

"Mercy, talk to me," Winston urges as he observes her.

She is currently sitting at her desk and is working at her personal computer in her office, which is the room right to the side of that of the sickbay where the mercenaries now lay.

The great ape stands near the door of the office and observes her.

"What you saw in there is, like I told you, a flashback. A STRONG flashback, which came without his consent, yes?" The woman stops and looks up at the other with worry in her face.

Winston recollects the few seconds before Mundy's seizure; only the great ape has been present when he has came to. The man's face has been covered by uncertainty. The man got first got a face of recognition when Winston spoke about the cryo-beds. Thereafter, Mundy took a look down on his body to see his scars and the strange ports that is made of the strange, old and cold technology. There was no warning whatsoever of the events that were to take place.

Winston nods to Mercy's question.

"I strongly suspect that it is the result of PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder," She states, and captures the other's attention.

"PTSD?" He asks.

He is not a doctor, but the disorder had a somewhat known reputation; it is a mental disorder that a person can develop after an event of great distress... examples of that are a war or a personal attack that left said person mentally scarred, and triggers the memories of the event to play out in their head again...

 _"Are you sure?"_

"As I have witnessed the patient during the flashback myself, and also the one that examined the extent of his scars, it is the diagnosis that I find most likely."

Winston perks up at that. _"The scars?_ You think that's the cause of the disorder?"

Mercy nods, "After what you told me of what Mr. Mundy did from the moment you saw him awake and till the moment of the seizure... it is highly believable. The disorder can easily be triggered when the patient gets reminded of the situation of the original trauma. When Mr. Mundy was looking at the scars on his body, the PTSD struck."

Winston nods a bit to himself as he looked to the side of his friend in thought; _it sounds reasonable._ Mercy takes the chance and goes back to her computer. Then, after half a minute with only the sound from the rattle of the doctor's fingers on the keyboard, there is a thought that hits Winston. He looks back at the doctor. "Mercy, how do you think these scars have occurred?"

Mercy looks back up as she answers, and when she does... the great ape gets cold.

"I suspect it is from when those ports were operated in. From what I can tell, the operation was done sloppily — either by honest mistakes or deliberate errors. But I suspect it is deliberate; no one with half a brain would put anyone less than an experienced doctor on the case, especially with the technology involved. Far less scars should have been present now if the procedure had been done right."

He was hit with the exact same thought; all the resent scars except the ones on the ankles and the wrists are only around the ports, and those that have been on the ankles and the wrists looks much like the ones from the leather straps.

This paints up a horrifying picture in his mind, as the only reason for the presence of straps is to hold someone still...

 _And why would you hold that someone still,_ _if not to do something to the person that the person in question doesn't want to endure?_

 **Like to inflict pain.**

What Mercy says only strengthens this conclusion; the operation was sloppy, as if the one operating wanted it to be more painful than usual and for the wounds to turn into scars.

 _This would explain the PTSD._

Winston can see it now.

The ports that are operated in without any sedatives or something that can reduce the pain, and even worse, _with the patient wide awake to experience it._

The great ape had a hard time to even picture it.

Why would someone do that to someone else?

For a moment, he refuses to believe that such a possibility exists.

How can someone be so… _so cold?_

"There must be some explanation to this," The great ape speaks, as he doesn't want to jump to wrong conclusions.

There must be a good reason to why putting a living, breathing entity through such stress, "... Maybe they have been out of sedatives, and out of time getting new supplies for whatever reason... or something."

The trauma that Mei has been through began to surface in his mind, and he greatly dislikes that anyone else might have experienced something like it.

Or experienced something even worse.

"I wouldn't know about time," Mercy answers. "Neither don't I know if they really were without sedatives. _But it would be strange if they really were out of medical supplies, wouldn't it?"_

At first Winston didn't get what she was saying, but after some thought, he did.

The cryo-beds had distributed a cocktail of chemicals into the bloodstream of the mercenaries through the ports, and after an analysis, one of the chemicals was shown to indeed be — sedatives. There was enough chemicals for the eight mercenaries to lie in cryo-beds for a hundred years, if not longer.

That shows somewhat of a supply.

"Maybe they needed to save everything they had to during the cryo-sleep," Offers Winston with an angry snort. He is still in refusal to think that someone would do something like it. Especially not a doctor.

He knows one, and he looks at her. A doctor would never let something like this happen... _ever._

But the things that they have found out still makes a really bad picture, even if it is just speculations. The thought alone made the great ape furious.

 _No one should be put through so much pain..._

"Maybe, maybe not," Answers Mercy, and Winston stops short.

Her calmness disappears even a bit more now, "Maybe the PSTD has nothing to do with the ports and the appurtenant operation. Maybe they got the scars on the ankles and the wrists from another point of situation entirely, even when the time period of the healing between them and the scars around the ports indeed are close, if not the same. But then why do all seven surviving merceneries of them have the same type of scars on the same areas of their bodies?"

"The other six might not even even have PTSD, we haven't really wakened them up to see," Mercy keeps on, as every word seems to become more and more impatient. "We know nothing about them, Winston, only that they seem to come from the 1970's. What they have done, who they worked for, who the doctor was... Maybe the doctor that worked on them really was somewhat of a moderate rookie, or the doctor might have needed to work fast as there was little time like you said... _We don't even know about this technology;_ these cryo-beds and the ports are far too advanced for the 1970's. But still, it seems to come from that time."

She halts here, as she seems to notice first now that she is not only rambling, but rambling with an ever increasing anger. She looks down at the desktop in front of her and takes a few quiet moments to regain herself, to summon the strength she so often wields otherwise.

Then she looks up at Winston again and leans forward. She somewhat regained her calm, but it is clear that she is greatly affected by these thoughts.

She fixates her stare at the great ape before she continues, "Until we actually ask them, everything we have discussed is nothing more than a speculation."

Mercy takes a moment to let it sink in.

 _"Mr. Mundy has PTSD,"_ She speaks, finally coming to a conclusion.

"I suspect it is from the scars around the ports, Winston. But from there on, without their own words to tell us what exactly happened to them, _**I JUST DON'T KNOW**_ _why Mr. Mundy has it!_ To the existence of the scars, why they have been put into cryo-sleep to begin with, anything." Her compassion of these seven men, these seven strangers, shines around her just then, as the next words leaves her mouth. "I pray as much as you do that it isn't as we first feared it was..."

Winston observes Mercy, with a renewed belief of her infinite goodness.

 _She really is an angel sent from The Heavens..._ much like her mechanical wings wants to tell of her. She worked for a long time in Switzerland, her home country, as a doctor before she joined Overwatch.

She worked hard to help the innocent and the helpless. What she said have calmed his own anger, and gave birth to belief that Overwatch can come down to the bottom of this.

"Then hopefully we will find out," He speaks calmly. "Once they wake up."

Shortly after that, he walks out of Mercy's office and into their sickbay, where the seven mercenaries still laid asleep.

He observes them quietly as he goes through how things currently are.

The great ape doesn't like the sound of all this.

The hunch of having a really bad situation at their hands just _grows._

If these mercenaries really have had such a bad history as it sounds, what more problems might they have?

 _And who can be so cruel?_

 _Poor souls..._

The ape feels pity for them. They might need serious help to heal mentally.

Winston then grows worried of what this might mean to himself and his friends, if the mercenaries really are to wake up and act violent.

Mr. Mundy wasn't aggressive... _at least..._ _he didn't seem like it._ But that can always change.

 _And what about the others?_

Can they really cope with whatever problems they have?

In that case, the great ape might have been reasonable to have put his friends in potential danger if they are to wake up and really turn out to be aggressive as a first reaction.

Winston starts to develop a great guilt for it.

These seven people, which silently rest in tranquility in the sickbay, have been _soldiers._

So much that Winston extracted out of that old hard drive, _so they then must know how to kill._

Therefore, before any further ado, Winston came to the conclusion that he must put the mercenaries into quarantine for everyone's safety.

Each and all of them need to be placed in their own smaller room before they wake up… and for a moment Winston even considers to put restrains on them.

He changes his mind quickly and decides to skip the restrains.

If Mr. Mundy's PTSD triggers only by the look of his scars, then restrains might even get a bigger trigger. If the restrains have anything to do with all this, so to say, and if all seven of them have the same problem, then it might not be such a good idea to have them all triggered at the same time.

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Gibraltar, Rock of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea_

There were barely any names on the hard drive from the museum, hardly even that.

All seven's call-signs have been there, but only the scattered names that are their real ones.

One of them is Mundy for the one assigned the call-sign, 'Sniper', but that is only his last name.

There is also the first name, _'Mikhail'_ for the one with the call-sign 'Heavy' and the last name Doe for the one with the the call-sign, 'Soldier'.

At least two full names have been intact; Tavish DeGroot, his call-sign was 'Demoman', and Dell Conagher as the one with the call-sign of, 'Engineer'.

The call-signs, 'Spy', and 'Scout', is ominous... two of the only three that have no names to them yet. The one that has been lying dead in it's cryo-bed seemed to have the call-sign, 'Pyro', and is the third without one without a name.

With every call-sign, there was also a smaller description of their talents and features, so that way, Winston can piece together what call-sign and potential name goes with what mercenary.

The descriptions have been damaged too, as everything else, but there fortunately was enough left to at least make a sense of.

There were pictures in the hard drive, but all of them have been destroyed beyond repair.

On Winston's initial search, the one that he have done even before heading to the bunker in Russia, there was no real match with the names in the hard drive. He has gotten a few hits on one of the last names... of a bright minded inventor within engineering by that goes by the name of Radigan Conagher, but _nothing_ about a Dell Conagher.

Now though, Winston has faces to work with.

He has taken a picture of every mercenary in their sleep, and brought them to the computer at Watchpoint Gibraltar where the Athena (The Supercomputer AI) is. He hopes that with the help of Athena, he can run a face recognition analysis on every picture there is on the World Wide Web in search of more information on these mercenaries. Athena is already informed of the findings and the existence of these mercenaries; Winston had, after all, made his first investigation of them together with the AI.

Only one match have been found though; an old clipping from a newspaper.

"Athena, what date is this?" The great ape asks as he studies the clipping on the big screen, "And what can you give me on the newspaper?" On it, there is a picture of some kind of doctor, by the looks of the white coat that the man is wearing.

It is no one he recognizes, but beside the doctor, there is someone Winston knows; _Mundy._

If the sniper hadn't been there, the clip would have gone by unnoticed. The article had the headline of ' _Good Samaritan saves lives in coalmine freak accident'._

"This is 1971, July the 12th," Answers Athena, "From a newspaper called _'Teufort Times'._ This newspaper was printed and distributed in a smaller scale in the town of Teufort. The newspaper's first number came out in 1952. The last came out in 2023 in favor for 'Trudid Magazine' once Teufort was declared as an integrated part in the forming of the city Trudid."

Winston hums in thought as he starts to read the newspaper.

It tells of an accident near the town Teuford with no obvious cause. A nearby coalmine suddenly experienced an explosion a few kilometers below ground level. It is theorized that there have been a gas pocket somewhere down in the tunnels, and that a spark from the equipment set it off. A few workers have been down there at the time, and they have not survived the cave-in that followed the explosion. The smaller tremors caused accidents on the surface at the dig site, where this doctor was helping.

There is no one that seemed to really have spoken to him though, or really noticed him at the time.

 _"He slipped in during the chaos and just started to treat people wherever he went,"_ Says a witness that had been hurt at the dig site, " _He was of few words, and went to help another as soon as he was done with me."_

Winston asks himself of how someone could have brought a camera at a dig site to a coalmine and even taken a chance to snap a few photos when something like this happens. Whoever it have been, the person have been aware enough to take a picture of this doctor. On the picture, the doctor is kneeling over an injured person that is propped up towards a big rock. There's also a few people around them in the background.

Winston doesn't know who this man is, but some interest sparks within him. And it is all because of one thing. On the picture, it seems that Mundy is talking with this medic.

 _Do these two know each other?_

There stands no name in the text, neither of the doctor's, nor of Mundy's.

"Do you know anything about him? Who this man is?" The great ape wonders to Athena and points at the doctor.

"No match found in any known record," Is the only answer he gets...

He scoffs a bit as he looks down on the floor, slightly irritated of not being able to get an answer.

There goes a moment before he speaks again, as Winston needs to collect his thoughts of what to do next.

Winston was really hoping to learn something new, but now there's only disappointment. Then he looks up at the screen again.

"Well, I see Mundy," The great ape speaks. "We haven't learned much from him. And Teufort has a grown a thousand fold, changed beyond recognition since the day this clip been published. I doubt that we can find anything by going to Teufort.

"Maybe this is worth saving anyway," Proposes Athena. "As an icebreaker of sorts?"

"I guess," Answers Winston, a bit unsure. He wouldn't really know how to break the ice with a stranger that suffers PTSD without triggering the disorder.

If he had known the person, he would!

 _But he don't know Mr. Mundy..._

Or any of the mercenaries.

It even seems that no one knows about _them_ from the lack of information, and to add upon it, these people are one hundred years behind the rest of the world.

Winston looks up at the clipping, at the frozen, half clear face of Mundy.

What mystery can this possibly be?

"I think it is time to have a meeting with everyone," The great ape says. "Send the message out, Athena. Have all active Overwatch operatives to return to Watchpoint Rio Xingú."

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

The conference room in Watchpoint Rio Xingú is one of the bigger rooms the building have. There is enough room to house 30 people.

When Winston initiated the Recall in the end of December last year he hoped that whenever they would have meetings, that this room would be full of Overwatch's old operatives and leaders by now. He hoped that even more than the 30 that can fit in this room would come.

But only a handful of people is within the wall of the conference room now, only enough to fill up the other nine seats… and is the only nine that have answered his recall.

Most of them have came just within the first week, and the rest have slowly dropped in later one by one. Now it seems that there is no-one more that will come, as the last one came over a little two weeks ago.

Winston tried to contact specific operatives this last week, to try to get them to rejoin what he hopes to be the reunion and the resurrection of Overwatch, but he either gotten the typical answers — _'caught up in other things',_ or has gotten no answer at all.

Winston suspects that in five years people might have moved on, to have started new lives or projects that they can't just leave. Winston is not even sure if some of his old friends are dead, with what kind of things they are working with.

Right now, the people in front of Winston, the nine people that have dropped everything and really have returned, _is Overwatch._

He hopes that more will come.

If his hopes will be answered, is to be seen for later...

The great ape can't help but feel overjoyed to slightly have Overwatch back up and running, even though so few have returned.

He hopes that even more can come back, but only time can tell. But he can't to help to feel distraught too.

Jack Morrison has been the leader of Overwatch in the prime days of the organization, but now he's dead.

He died when their headquarters in Switzerland blew up in 2076.

He was a good man; fair, tough and honest, ready for a fight, never willing to back down.

Winston wondered who might take his place.

He did hear some strange news about Jack though; that one, an individual that goes by the alias of 'Soldier 76' and Jack himself might be one and the same person... Winston wouldn't know much about that.

Jack wouldn't just go out and take down the evil in the world by his own, right?

 _He's dead._

He looks over the nine people that, together with himself, is the new Overwatch.

There is graceful Mercy and tinkering Mei of course. Then there is speedy Tracer, smiling Torbjörn and loud Reinhardt, which makes five.

The other four is Brigitte, the squire that joined Reinhardt on his adventures; the agents Mirembe and Kimiko, that have just lived their lives over these five years; and lastly the pilot, Carl, that had the role of an occasional pilot.

Since they have rejoined Overwatch, they have been posted at different locations. Mercy, Torbjörn, Mirembe, Reinhardt and Birgitte were posted at Watchpoint Rio Xingú in Brazil.

Winston, Tracer, Kimiko, Carl and Mei are at Watchpoint Gibraltar along the Mediterranean Sea.

But for this meeting, they have all came to sit in the conference room in Watchpoint Rio Xingú.

They all are at this very moment quiet, with their eyes solemnly staring at the great ape.

All of them wanted to know what Winston wanted, why he had even decided to call for a meeting.

"As you may or may not know, a few days ago I successfully extracted information from the damaged hard drive that we obtained in the last raid a month ago," He begins. "This information turned out to be dossiers of eight mercenaries from the 1970's. On the hard drive there was also the location of a bunker with eight cryo-beds. These eight mercenaries occupied these cryo-beds."

By the mention of cryo-beds Winston's eyes goes involuntary to Mei, as well as his thoughts goes to her experiences with cryo-sleep.

He is fast to force himself to look away before any of the others discovers that he is staring.

He's unsure if anyone noticed, but he himself is sure to notice that a few of the others have the same reaction.

Mei herself seems oblivious of it all, as her attention still remains solemnly on Winston.

Winston halts for a moment to see if there is any reaction from the others.

They are all sitting still, as they give him their full attention.

"You might wonder if they have survived all this time," The great ape continues, and gives a small theatrical pause before he says anything more, "... All but _one_ have survived."

It is when he says that, astonishment begins to show on all faces expect for Mei's and Mercy's, as the two of them have already know all this.

Tracer arches a brow, _"No way! They can't possibly have!"_ She stresses, _"... r-really?!"_ She sputters out, speaking with evident surprise and shock in her voice. _"How?"_

"I don't know," Winston speaks truthfully. "It is a wonder that most of the technology had continued to work, even though some parts have malfunctioned. It seems like it was built to last, but that it have worked as long and as well as it has... really have might just been pure luck."

Everyone shares looks between each other in the quiet moment that follows, before everyone goes back to stare at Winston.

 _"Do we know if they are friendly?"_ Asks Torbjörn. "Have they woken up? Who are they?"

"One of them have woken up once, but Mercy, Mei and myself included were forced to sedate him," Answers the great ape.

He sees the worry on everyone's face to the reason for this, except for Mercy and Mei, but he makes no pause.

"When he woke up, he experienced a strong flashback, and for both our and his own safety, we were forced to do it. We have reason to suspect that he, and possibly the others as well, has PTSD, or, _Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder —_ But we aren't sure if there is any truth to it, so it's just a hunch. Otherwise we barely know anything else about them."

 _"How much was on that hard drive?"_ Wonders Reinhardt.

"What looks to be the remains of dossiers, and the location of the bunker." Winston answers, "There are a few names, but only two are completed with a first and a last name. Three, including the one found dead, have no names at all, as the rest only have either one or the other. But they all seem to have call-signs, like many of us, that are intact... Though it could have been more, but much of the information have been damaged or corrupted."

 _"You haven't found anything else?"_ Tracer asks, a bit skeptical of his answer.

"Only an old news article from the same time period as them, but it gives no light in the matter," Winston informs them.

There is another pause in the conference room, but the great ape can guess that they all share the same question on their mind; _what to do with the mercenaries?_

"These people seem to have been completely forgotten from the world," Winston continues. "If they are friends or foes, is a question that remains to be seen, but something is clear though; _they seemed to be in trouble."_

Here, Winston stops for just a second to give everyone in the room a good look over, as to evaluate them.

Every one of them has recognitionin their eyes to what he is saying. "... And Overwatch is everything about helping those in need."

Every one of them gave a nod, from the big giant Reinhardt, to the small woman Mei.

 _"I say we help them, and then take it from there,"_ The great ape ends.

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Matthew wakes up with a jolt.

He isn't entirely sure why he wakes up the way he had, but in his dream, there has been a sudden feeling of urgency.

An urgency to wake up,

 _To flee._

That there is the need to fight with every power, strength and need he have, _even to tooth and nail._ And he surely finds out why, not that he remembers what the dream had really been about, but for only that strange, nagging feeling...

He finds himself once again lying down on something soft and warm; a comparable bed, but he isn't where he was last time.

The room is considerably smaller and brightly lit, and there is far less objects that inhabits it. But by the looks of these objects, they are of the same kind as before.

There is a camera in one corner, which surely takes in the entirety of the room through its lens.

A massive window is built into one of the walls that the last room didn't have, complete with an intercom at its side. He knows from the mere look at the glass that it is a one-way mirror.

The need of it of being there, together with the intercom, strikes him immediately, as _odd._

The fact that this new room seems to be some kind of mashup between surgery and observation makes him tense.

 _'Is Gray on the other side of that glass?'_

 _'Coward... Will he let the others torture me while he looks on?'_

 _'Is he gonna ask me the same bloody question in exchange for the barmy promise of not torturing me more than he needs to?'_

Mat's teammates were nowhere to be seen.

He looks around for them from where he lays, to make sure that they definitely aren't there.

 _'Where are they?'_

 _'Are those blokes alright?'_

He knows about their abilities to take care of themselves, and he strongly trusts on those abilities. But that doesn't help the nagging feeling of _worry._

Maybe their situation is worse than his.

Maybe they were being tortured by Gray at this very moment.

Maybe they are already dead and then their bodies were disposed of.

 _To not know is almost worse than to actually do._

He sits up and swings his long, dangly legs with certain restriction over the side of the bed. He is a little surprised that there is no restraints that force him to just lay in the bed, but quickly, he shakes it off.

He only thanks whatever god there is up above that there are no restraints to hold him, even if it seems to be out of Gray's style to leave something basic as that out.

He also is hit with the overhanging feeling that he is weaker than he remembers, and that every action he takes seems to take much more of his strength to perform.

He looks at the one-way mirror to have a good look on himself in the reflection.

There he sits, and for a moment he isn't able to recognize the man that stares back at him.

 _'Fuck me- my face is all sunken in!'_

He had nothing on him other than a pair of underpants and a hospital gown.

He dimly remembers the underwear the last time he have been awake, and damns himself that the memory of the last time he was awake is hazy at best.

The gown though, is new.

He is very long and thin to his build; he is of a whole 73 inches, and the only one that might be thinner than him is Scout.

Spy too perhaps.

Mat doesn't really know, he isn't much for comparing.

As Matthew looks down at his bare legs, he is stricken to see that there is a gaping difference to them that he haven't taken notice to before; they are way thinner than what he had before.

 _No more meat on his legs..._

After a quick glance over, he sees that all of him is thinner and more slump. He had gone down tremendously in weight, in both fat tissue and muscles.

He must have even lost the little surplus that he had to begin with.

In doing this self-examination though, he is also reminded of the intrusions of the operation that he so strongly remembers.

The scars and the ports just stare at him, and the memories of the surgery come back yet again. His body cramps up just like last time, and he feels himself fall from the bed to the floor with a scream before he yet again, is thrown right back into the memory.

The knives are back, as they are cutting, **slicing** and **clawing** into him.

The burning pain **tears** at him, his mind and voice both scream from it — utter **terror.** He curses the medibots and damns them to oblivion with as much emphasis as he possibly can.

He can hear the **screams** of the others.

Their cries, their imprecations, their short prayers and their calls — Their **fear.**

... And Medic's **empty** face.. his slack jaw, his glossy eyes… the loss all returns.

The moment after, he is back at the small room that he had woken up in.

There are people there, he realizes. Folks that have opened the door and enter in a hurry.

Hands that close in on him.

 **'Gray!'**

Matthew finds himself thinking on the name, and the figures that carefully hoist him up on the bed transforms into unarmed bots, with still faces, glowing eyes and stern grips.

 **'Gray!'**

The name fills him with **rage.**

It fills him with an insane madness that he had only in one other occasion...

 **A Hunter's Rage...**

He hits, he **kicks** and he flings.

He **bites** , he scratches and he **claws**.

His diminished fat and muscle reserves is forgotten, and a hidden strength comes to him that only a **madman** that ready for the life beyond can possess.

For these few seconds, he is able to turn the tide to his advantage, and in a roar that rivals that of a **monster,** he succeeds to overpower two of the three bots in one quick succession.

One of the bots... a Scout-Bot by the looks of it, was heaved into one wall with such a force, that it seizes to function after the impact.

The other, the robot that looked like him, received a bash to its head on the metal frame of the bed. It too, falls to the floor without any more functionality. The third robot he faces though, is not as the first two...

It is the cause of the tiniest of pauses in Mat; _A Heavy-Bot._

Even unarmed, the giant of metal and moving parts is a challenging foe, a challenge that Mundy had no fear of taking on.

A few gasps of air to get his strength back up is everything Matthew needs before he leaps.

He strides forward towards the giant, and takes a jump at it.

He clenched a hand ready in a wide swing. The heavybot flails backward from the incoming man. It follows with its gaze on the fist that Mat was ready to strike with, and with a swiftness and reflex that Mundy had never seen in a bot, it takes it's one hand up and seizes his hands just as he strikes.

With the other hand the heavybot catches the collar of his gown as Mundy prepares to make impact, and holds him like that in the air.

Their eyes meet, and despite the rage he's in, Matthew knows that this is not good.

With one hand at a hard grip of the collar, and with a crushing hold of his closed fist with the other hand, the fight halts to a stop.

Mat refuses to stop the struggle though. With his other fist, he aims square at its head. The blow connects, and a few snapping sounds is heard from his hand on impact. It sends the bot to one knee, interrupting it's hold on him.

Matthew drops to his knees in the fall as well, but he is quick to get back up to his feet. He did not care about the throbbing pain from his broken fingers.

He jumps at the The Heavy-Bot again and kicks it on the head.

The strike makes it fall to its side, temporarily disabled for just a minor friction of a second.

It was then that Mat notices the door to be open.

The madness flashes in his deranged eyes.

 _ **"Gray!"**_ He cries out at the opening before he strides at it.

However, he is grabbed from behind.

Two massive hands find their way in front of his arms, the hands then lock their mechanical joints under his armpits and around the back of his head, trapping him in an iron hold. He is even lifted a bit up in the air from the hold, and leaves his feet kicking relentlessly at the air.

Matthew had his eyes only on the doorway.

The man he had the deepest hate for was standing there.

 _ **"GRAY!"**_ Matthew roared out as manically as he could.

The man that stands there in the doorway, _that in reality isn't really there,_ only smiles at his outburst.

Mundy reaches with his hands towards the opening, at the direction of the man's throat, as Matthew's biggest wish to just strangle him.

 _"It's best for you to run, you fuckin' wanker, cause I'm on your bloody trail! I WILL NEVER STOP CHASING YOU! I'll fucking **kill** you for what you done! To me! To Medic! To Scout, Heavy and everyone!"_

Mundy's throat is **raw** at this point from the shouting, but that doesn't stop him from screaming one last time.

 ** _"YOU'RE GONNA DIE! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"_**

... Matthew pants heavily as he is easily wrestled to the ground by the The Heavy-Bot, and with his one cheek pressed to the floor and both his hands behind his back, he is forcibly pinned down.

The Heavy-Bot is standing over him, with one foot at each side of the marksman's body. The robot's one big hand hold's Mat's hands firmly to his back, and with the other, delivers an iron grip to the man's head.

But it is not the The Heavy-Bot that Mundy had his urge to destroy; it is the man that still stands at the open doorway.

 _"Have your fuckwit machine let me go so that I can fight you, Gray!"_ Mat hissed through clenched jaws as he struggled with all his might against the grip of the bot.

 _ **"Don't you want to get your suit dirty?! COME HERE!"**_

He can feel his whole body shake with anger and rage; he's in attack mode, even when his body can't possibly have the energy for that in the emancipated state he's in.

He's purely operating on andrenaline.

Gray only flashes a wicked smile; he looks completely unfazed of what Mat says, which only makes the aussie angrier.

It in turn makes Mundy struggle even more, as a furious snarl comes from his mangled face. His only wish is to wipe that damned smile from Gray's face, even if Mat is forced to peel it off with a knife... or his nails... _whatever._

Matthew suddenly blinks in shock at the open doorway, and his face goes totally slack.

His struggle against the hold of the bot above him halts. Gray's figure suddenly hazed out from the marksman's vision without even moving a step, a change that had gone by so fast that Mundy can hardly believe it. One moment, Gray had just stood there, with his evil, smug-looking grin, and in the next there is nothing but air where he had been.

 _Or... should've been..._

Mat takes a few deep breaths as he just stares.

Where has he gone to?

The marksman stares so hard that he swears he can look right through the wall at the far other side of the doorway.

 _He was right there..._

The exhaustion hits him like a slap in the face; sudden and completely unexpected. He almost forgets how to breathe, and he can feel that his body gets as relaxed as he has ever experienced in his entire life, a feeling that can only rival the calmness of being sedated, an experience that he recently endured.

But Matthew is pretty sure that no syringe had touched him this time; it is all just simple exhaustion, and he is unable to do anything about it as his body refuses to respond.

The only kind of movement he can produce is the movement of his eyes and the blinking of his eyelids.

Otherwise, there is only the deep, slow breaths that his body takes normally.

A strange feeling, that is both unnerving and relieving at once.

Unnerving in the way that he can't do anything, as if he is a prisoner in his own body.

And relieving, in the way that he feels like his whole body is laying down on clouds, as every muscle in his body is relaxed and stress-free.

 _He doesn't like it one bit._

Especially with the thought of the bot that is still over him. The Heavy-Bot had yet to move, but Mat notices that its hold has eased somewhat after his body went slack.

Then, after a few moments of any reaction, the hold disappears completely from both Mat's head and hands.

Mundy is free to get up and bolt out of the room, but is completely unable to.

 _Oh, the sweet, sweet irony._

He feels the bot move his hands of his back and to his side, before he is turned over to lay on his back. His head rolls a bit on its own accord, but stops with his face straight up at the ceiling.

He gets a good view of the massive bulk above him, _but to his confusion he doesn't see The Heavy-Bot..._

No...

It is the big ape that he saw the last time he woke up.

 _Where did the bot go?_

 _It can't just go away like that._

 _What's going on?!_

He wants to speak, to ask the question out loud, but he is unable to.

The ape looks down on him, and casts a shadow as big as itself. It blocks the bright light, and it makes the contrast around its edges very distinct, and for Mat to see this big creature looming over him, without any power to do anything — _is completely terrifying._

He knows his animals, and he knows that apes are tremendously strong.

 _Exceptionally stronger_ than _the average human._

He doesn't know what's worse, to have this ape look down at him, or the The Heavy-Bot.

Matthew hears steps by his side, from the direction of the open door, and looks that way the best he can without the ability to move his head.

 _Gray?!_

 _It is him... isn't it?_

But he is proved wrong, as a man the aussie don't recognize comes to stand by the ape's side and joins in to just stare down at Mat.

Matthew can only stare back, even how much he wants to stands up and to run out.

 _"What just happened?"_ The man asks in shock.

 _"You tell me,"_ Gruns the ape, before it gestures with one if its oversized hands towards the two other downed bots.

 _"He got another flashback,_ then he just... _attacks,_ and screams _bloody murder._ Now he's just still."

There is a halt, where the man and the ape only stare down at the marksman, "Carl, look after Mercy and Mei," The ape finally says.

 _'Did it say it's name is Winston?'_

"See if their fine."

 _'Mercy?'_

Matthew feels his face twitch a bit when he tries to frown in confusion.

 _'Mei?'_

 _'Are those names? Why is this bloody ape talking about names?!'_

 _'There are only bots here!'_

 _... Machines that should be crushed and destroyed as quickly as possible, according to Mundy..._

Even so, the man at Winston's side, _Carl,_ rounds Matthew to get to the bots.

It takes a few silent moments before a voice comes from that direction.

"Their breathing, but Mei has a nasty bruising on her face," Carl reports. "And Mercy seems to have a big swelling in the back of her head. Hopefully it's nothing more than a mild concussion..."

Winston, who bad not broken his eye contact with Mat until now, when it looks up at the other man, gives a snort.

"Too bad that Mercy is the only doctor we have," The ape states, exhausted.

"I think that Kimiko and Mirembe have some basic medical knowledge," Provides the man, just as Matthew can feel the twitching of his fingers and toes.

The marksman can feel the blood flow back to his limbs.

The ape seems to have seen it in the corner of it's eye, as it turns it's gaze down at Mat sharply.

"Then get Mercy and Mei out of here," The ape commands. "And put Kimiko and Mirembe to tend to their wounds."


	3. Chapter 2

_Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Matthew "Mat" Mundy looked at his own face in the reflection from where he sat at the bed in his hospital gown, bewilderment ever evident in his expression.

He is still way thinner than he was used to, he seemed to still be a hundred years into the future... and it seems that he really is talking to an intelligent ape named 'Winston' that is on the other side of the glass.

The thing is, the fact that it all is possibly real, has just began to take root in Mat's head.

Mind the word _'began'._

 _Mundy still refuses to accept it completely._

 _"So… this is really_ _ **2082**_ _?_ " The aussie asks, surely for the third time.

"Yes," comes the ape's voice from the intercom, a bit tired at trying to convince the stubborn man about the situation.

"And I'm not in Teufort anymore?"

"You aren't even in America."

"But in Brazil?"

"Correct."

There is the tiniest of halts here, before the uncertain questions continues again from Mundy,

"In a base of sorts?"

"Yes."

"Of an organization called… _'Overwatch'?"_

"That's us."

"And you fight crime? Over the whole world?"

"That's the idea of it."

"You also do it even when it is against the law?"

Here, Matthew frowns a bit.

He himself has done his fair share of breaking the law, as a few of the animals he hunted have been endangered. Not too many of his missions have been to take such prizes in, but it had still been there. The law had clearly stated that the animals is not to be exploited in any way, but he have never really been that much concerned or unfazed by any of it.

But then he had changed from hunting animals as a huntsman, may they have been endangered or not, to hunting _humans_ as an _assassin._

Then, almost all of his missions were illegal, _except for very few exceptions._

"There's really an act that specifically forbids Overwatch to exist?" he asks.

He can hear the ape give a long, tired sigh, _"Yes,_ the _Petras_ act. An act that never should have been written."

If that is what he thinks Matthew doesn't care that much. Written laws isn't something that Matthew cares much about, and that applies to any law. The only problems that it creates in Mat's mind, is the best way to do it while remaining undetected, and, _if_ he gets detected, how to evade the authority.

He's pretty sure that the other mercenaries are of a similar mind when it comes to the subject... _**some**_ _._

"The things that we have already done since Overwatch's reunion have been met with mixed reactions from throughout the world," continues the great ape.

"Some welcome us back with open arms and cheers... _others thinks we just turned into another band of war criminals..._ Some scream for the Petras act to be broken, others scream just as loud to put more laws up against us — to punish us for both going against the act, and what we have done so far."

Winston looks down with a troubled face, "That Overwatch, together with all its old watchpoints, should be destroyed once and for all."

"But you are of another mind?" asks Matthew. "You want to bring back Overwatch?"

Winston nods, discreetly, but with honesty. It is obvious, he didn't _need_ to ask that question. Matthew can't see the nod, due to Winston sitting behind an onw-way mirror, but the aussie understands it notheless.

There is another pause here, where Matthew puts his head back to stare at the ceiling in thought. Even though Winston never strayed one single inch from this story after three times, it is a big cake to swallow. And on top of that, it seems like Mat sees things that aren't there.

"The man that I saw earlier wasn't really there, right?" the marksman asks with a sigh, with the image of Gray's smiling face clear in his mind.

"The one in the doorway?" Winston asks

Mat nods, _"Ye."_

Winston shakes his head, "No."

It had surely been an hour since Matthew had woken up, and for the first half hour of that time, the only thing he has done is to pace back and forth in front of the one-way mirror, demanding that he speaks to Gray.

In the end, the aussie was forced to take a seat to rest his weakened and undernourished body.

It was only after fifteen minutes of more reasoning, that the ape had finally convinced Mundy that the real Gray was never inside of the building after all.

While Matthew was speaking with the ape, he did his best to avoid looking down on his own body, nor did he allow himself to look further down than to the neck of his own reflection.

He doesn't like the 'work' that Gray did to his body, and even takes it so far as to describe it as _disgusting... which it truly was._

It was disgusting because of the reminders that he must drag with him. Reminders of what a horrible person Gray is in the form of scars, ports and hallucinations.

 _'_ _I wonder if the others have hallucinations, too,'_ he thinks to himself.

For a moment, he plans to go to Medic to hear his plans for getting the mercenaries back into tip-top shape.

Then Mat is hit with the terrible fact that Medic isn't here anymore... and that he will never be able to come back... _because he's dead._

"So?" comes Winston's voice over the intercom. "Can we let you out? Can we trust you to not cause any more trouble?"

Matthew brings his face back down the ceiling to look at the mirror. He tries to look past the face of his reflection, of his cheeks that are sunken in, his eyes that look like two gaping holes of a skeleton, and his ears that look to be sticking out from his rugged head now more than ever.

He tries to imagines the face of the ape behind that reflection, and only succeeds by half. He squints his eyes at his try, and sees the muscles around the darkened eye sockets shift. To have a conversation with an ape is strange, _for lack of better words._

Can this be considered surreal?

He thinks so.

"I guess you can," Matthew answers, and then he gives a bitter smile. "I'll try to give you a heads-up if Gray or his bots comes back."

After a second the door out of his little room opens, and in comes the big ape itself. Mat gets up from his seat on the bed, and stumbles just lightly on his own feet as he makes it towards the opening.

"That is also a thing I want to speak about," Winston speaks as the marksman passes him, "Other than who you and your colleagues are, _who is this_ _ **Gray**_ _?"_

"I'd love to have a chitchat with ya, but I'd like to have it first when I'm out in this ridiculous _thing,"_ explains the marksman. He gestures towards the hospital gown that is still donned on his body as he looks around on what there is on the other side of the door.

Matthew realizes that Winston turns out to be very understanding for an ape.

Only ten minutes later, the aussie sits on a bench at a table in the kitchen in an old uniform overall, which had been intended for Overwatch agents.

The uniform looks like it is three sizes too big on him, even when it is the right length. It was all because of how _thin_ he had became under his very long time in the cryo-bed. And not only that, but the marksman also gotten a plate of food from Winston without even asking for it.

The plate, accompanied with a fork, a knife and a glass of milk, was neatly put in front of him on the table.

The marksman is marveled to hear his own stomach growl loudly.

He hadn't noticed that he worked up a real hunger.

He looks at Winston in mild surprise, whom has taken the seat in front of him on the other side of the table. How the bench under the ape can sustain the animal's weight without breaking, or to even give a _creak,_ is beyond his understanding.

Matthew never would've guessed that he would get food just like _that,_ and neither the overalls... _for free,_ from someone that had no idea of who he is, nor to have any business with, or interest in him at all.

The ape only gives a silent sign to dig in on the food in front of him.

As Mat takes his first chews of the food, it turns out to be nothing other than a blessing to his body, he eyes not only Winston, but also, the other figure that had decided to join them in the kitchen.

It is the man from before, Carl.

He is leaning against one of the kitchen walls near where Winston and Mat is sitting, as he keeps a close eye on what the aussie is doing.

Matthew figured that Carl was worried about the illusions coming back, and that he'd go violent again.

 _'Hmph. Guess it's understandable.'_

"So," Winston begins, friendliness highly evident in his voice even when the marksman had attacked him only an hour ago... it's something the aussie takes notice of, and finds that what he knows about the little contact he had with fellow humans, is a rare trait; _to forget, and forgive_ something like this at a moments notice.

He himself wouldn't do that so easily.

"Mr. Mundy, care to bring some light over the situation?"

Matthew swallows the food intently. "Why not?" he says, "Whaddya wanna know?"

 _"Everything_ you can tell us."

Mat looks up to meet Winston's eyes, as there is a small pause. The marksman frowns a bit, as he thinks about it. "You can't be more _specific_ about it?"

The great ape shrugs a bit, "Ah. You can begin with yourself, and then continue from there," he suggests.

"Fine," Matthew says, as he takes another forkful of the food into his mouth. He chews it quickly, then he swallows it all at once.

"The names Matthew, but my parents often call me 'Mat' for short." Matthew takes a pause here, as the picture of his parents comes up in his mind.

 _"I wonder what ever happened to them..."_

"We wish that we could look it up for you," Winston shoots in. "But apparently there isn't any information we can find on you or the others. Where you're from... what you've done... _nothing."_

Mundy can only stare in silence when he hears this. When his ability to speak comes back to him he sounds more confused than he intends to, "Rubbish. You must have. What about the old newspapers? My dad should have at least _something_ written about him there, as he owned the biggest farm in the area we lived in. Or what about my birth certificate?"

The following silence from the two beings in front of him only tells Mat that there had not been so much luck there.

He sighs, "How couldn't you find anything? You already knew my last name... wait, hold on a minute." Here he takes a small pause.

 _"How did you know my last name, but not anything else?"_

Winston goes ahead to explain about the damaged hard drive, of what seems to be damaged dossiers on it, and that it had led the great ape all the way to the bunker in Russia.

 _"Russia?"_ Mat gasps, "Were we all the way out in _Russia?"_

Winston nods to his question.

"... Crikey, I wonder why we were even out there..." the marksman asks out loud, as much to himself as to Winston and Carl, "Last thing I remember, we were still back in the states... near Teufort."

"You didn't know anything of what was going to happen to you after the cryo-sleep?" the great ape asks.

The marksman shakes his head. "We weren't let in on anything when Gray forced all of us into the sleep in the end of 1971. We were just… _you know."_

Here he stops for just a second to point at where the ports and the scars are on his own body. He feels that if he just say the word 'operation' or 'surgery' he will have another flashback.

Winston nods with an interested face, and shows that he understands.

"All of us," Matthew continues, "At the same time in the same room. Then they must have blindfolded us or something. I can't remember much else."

Winston gets quiet and his face turns deadly serious. He eyes Matthew closely, and even leans in a bit closer over the table. The aussie can feel a small knot in his stomach taking form as he wonders what the ape is doing.

There's just _something_ about an ape that looks very serious while getting intimidatingly closer, which unnerves him. Maybe it's the size of him, or maybe it is the deep-rooted instinct of how regular apes behave while near humans.

Mundy is definitely unaccustomed to an animal that can show such complicated or intense feelings just as good as any human.

To sit as close as the two of them does now too. So close, that the marksman can get such a good look of its expressions doesn't help, and that the gaze is directed directly at Mat helps even less...

Matthew just finds it deeply disturbing of an ape to stare right at him with such an earnestness as Winston has right now.

 _"You were forced?"_ the great ape asks, slowly and clearly.

"Yeah."

Another small pause comes before the next questions comes, and as the question comes a few, deep, angry wrinkles appear on Winston's forehead.

"And the operations for those?" A gesture from the ape's big hand towards the ports indicates to the marksman what Winston means.

"The operation for the ports? _Was it forced, too?"_

Carl visibly freezes at the mention of an operation and the thoughts of the ports, as well as the aussie.

Mat can see something shift in the corner of his eye, and he can see Gray himself haze in for just a heartbeat.

Of course, the damn smile is the thing that is the clearest, even when Mat only can see it from the corner of his vision.

The man in his gray suit just stands there, as the illusion just observes him. Then, as fast as it appeared, it hazes out.

Matthew can't help but to feel some of the pain in his body from the operation, nor the small sense that the knives are back and are moving on his body, but he is quick to force it back quickly.

He refuses to succumb to another of those attacks this day, even though he can feel some of his muscles twitch. He is able to contain the attack, and with a shaky outtake of his breath, Mundy thanks his maker that this attack was a milder one.

It takes a moment for the man to answer. He averts his eyes towards the closest wall, which the table they are sitting at stands up against.

"Yeah," Mat answers. _"Forced…without any painkillers- sedatives- or whatsoever."_

Mundy can see from the corner of his eye how the great ape still observes him.

Winston's face had relaxed; his seriousness in his eyes are still there, but the rest of the face lost all of the earlier graveness. Even the wrinkles on the ape's forehead is gone. Winston's mouth was still open in shock. Carl had a similar reaction, but he is able to not let his lower jaw hang loose.

It takes a moment before Winston and Carl is able to pull themselves together, and in that time, Matthew takes the chance to clear his mind completely of the memory.

He had the idea that it wasn't exactly the best time to be thinking about it, as the memory seems to make him very aggressive and completely deranged for a certain period.

To see illusions of Gray and his bots. To mistake people that were just trying to help for the _enemy_ instead... and to relive the forced operation with his limbs cramping...

It's all very painful, disorienting and invites the feeling of nervous vulnerability, like he has no exit in the sight of grave danger.

He doesn't like it at all.

He tries to focus on the food in front of him instead, and slowly takes a few more forks-full of it into his mouth.

The food starts to get cold, but it's okay with him; _cold food is better no food._

"So," Matthew says after eating most of what lies on the plate, and brings attention to himself, _"What else?"_

Winston clears his throat as the last of the shock disappears from his appearance, "Go on about yourself, please." He beckons, "You told us your name is Matthew, but others also call you, 'Mat'?"

"That's right. I was born and brought up in Australia. I was the only child. When it comes to friends... I don't have a lot, and the few that still are alive today is the ones that have been put into cryo-sleep together with me."

He stops himself here for only a fraction of a second. "Although," he grimaced, "I can't say that all of them are my friends." He said, referring to a certain Spy and what was left of his bunch, "None of them know my name, though."

Winston shares a weird look with Carl, before they both turn back to Mat.

"Why not?" asks the great ape.

"It wasn't a requirement to tell it to coworkers when I was hired by RED..." When the aussie sees the uncomprehending expressions on the two others he curses his old habits; he must use the whole name instead of just the abbreviation. "RED. The abbreviations stand for, _Reliable Excavations and Demolition,"_ he elaborates.

"Never heard of it," Winston comments, before the ape looks to Carl for his input.

The man shakes his head as he too, don't know anything about it.

"Then what about the BLU-"

Matthew takes one of his hands and brings it up to his face in some frustration over the old habits that is still deep-rooted.

 _"Ugh,_ I mean the _Builders League United."_

No recognition sparks in the faces of the others, and without any need of a spoken word, Mundy already has his answer.

That's when Mat knows that he had to make a small summary of everything he knew of these two business. About the two brothers-turned-rivals named Redmon and Blutarch Mann, about the gravel war and, at last, the return of the long lost third brother, Gray... with his Gray Gravel Company.

Matthew also tells them what little he knows of Gray's murder of his two brothers, which isn't much.

That is about the same time everything went to hell and back.

"Is this the same Gray that forced you and the others into the surgeries and the cryo-sleep?" This time it is Carl that asks the question for a change.

"Yes, he is," answers the marksman.

Mat can see that the answer angers the ape greatly, and even Carl is visibly shaken.

It surprises the aussie that they react this way; _they didn't even know him,_ they had no obligation to him or his well-being, but yet they had such a strong reaction when they heard about it, and yet they haven't heard the details of the surgery, nor the more ingoing information of Gray.

They had barely came to know Matthew as a person... In truth, Mat is half unsure of how he is to react on it... But he knows to feel some gratitude towards these strangers that he just came to know, for their care of someone they barely know in return.

"I think I need to do some more research on the things you have told us," Winston declares and stands up, "More specifically on this... _Gray."_

Just at that moment, someone enters the kitchen, a woman that Matthew hadn't met before.

She stops at the door, and glances nervously at the marksman. Mat knows her reasons for doing so wa because of his actions during his phantom-tantrum, and that he himself would keep distance in her place. He didn't blame her for her behavior.

"Mercy and Mei are both conscious now," She reports to Winston. "Mercy did indeed have a mild concussion, but she is able to do light work. What I recommend is rests for her, and _frequently..._ She might get nausea if she decides to overwork herself, but other than that, she'll be fine and heal on her own."

"Good," says the great ape. "How about Mei?"

"She has quite a bit of swelling on her face, but nothing's broken. She can get back to work immediately without any trouble."

 _"Hm. Question is if they really feel like going straight back to work."_

Winston nods at the woman, "Thank you, Kimiko. Go and see if they need any more help."

The woman, Kimiko, turns and exits the kitchen the same way she entered.

Winston turns back to Matthew to study him for a moment.

"The things you have told us is enough so far, but I think that we should end the conversation here. I need to look into this information in the archives anyway. I suggest you should go back to your bed now, Mr. Mundy."

"If you say so," Mat agrees and quickly puts the last of his cold food on the plate, into his mouth.

After swallowing it down, he stands up, but as he turns and is about to exit the kitchen, he's suddenly stopped by a big hand on his shoulder.

The marksman looks back and observes the great ape with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll instruct Mercy to come and check up on you," Winston tells him, sternness prominent in his tone, "I want to believe that you will not try to attack her again, but in case of a relapse — I can't be sure on it however much I dislike it. _Can I have your word that you will at least try not to attack anyone of us in the future if you see these illusions again?"_

"Mate, it's the least I can do," Mundy answers, sincerity in his voice.

"Good." The ape gives Mat a small pat before Winston lets the man's shoulder go.

"Carl will show you to the quarters that you can have as long you stay here at watchpoint Rio Xingú." Winston says.

As Matthew is escorted to his new living quarters, he can't fail to notice that Carl keeps a close eye on him, making sure that Mat won't try anything stupid...

 _ **\- An hour later -**_

Matthew's new living quarters is the size of a smaller studio flat; it was only one room that had a natural one-sized bed that cam completed with clean sheets, a couch for two, an empty bookshelf and a writing table with a lamp on it.

Brown is the most dominant color of the room, as the walls, roof and some parts of the furniture have said coloring.

Other than the furniture and the other parts of the room, the floor is white, as well as the rest of much of the furniture.

Not really brown, but half of brown and white.

The only dot of other color in the room is the lamp, which is a deep, vibrant red.

There are no windows, which Mat likes.

Past experiences have lead him to worry of enemy Snipers and Spies creeping on him via windows, and transparent objects...

There is a door other than the one Matthew had entered in, and when he opened this second door, he is not surprised to see a small, private bathroom.

There is the standard toilet, basin and bathroom cabinet with a built-in mirror on the wall over the basin. There's also is a shower with white one big jalousie.

In the bathroom, everything is completely white, with the exception of the silver-grey that makes out the mirror and its frame in the bathroom cabinet as well as some minor details of the shower.

The white-glistening glass tiles that covers the walls inside the room gives him the notion that either this bathroom had either been recently cleaned — down to the _millimeter._

 _Or,_ _it may have never been used._

Matthew realizes that the same might apply for the whole quarters.

Compared to the usual places of temporary residence he took haven in, this is something comparable to a five star hotel, if not, then _ten at least..._

Not that he thinks it's _perfect , because that would be an exaggeration;_ but he's used to having some dirt laying around everywhere.

He gets an idea of wanting to exit the quarters and go exploring the rest of the base while he waits for that checkup that Winston mentioned to him, but Matthew figures that it is better off to just wait and see if these 'Overwatch' people will give him a tour over the area.

 _And besides,_ Carl locked the door.

The marksman wondered if it was a direct order from the ape.

Matthew scoffs, _"Pfft... Safety measures and low trust. So long for 'forgive and forget'."_ He sighs. _"Agh, but damn. Can I really blame them for worrying about me?"_ he asks himself.

As promised, a woman comes to check up on him an hour after he entered the quarters.

He spent the majority of his twenty minutes just laid down, facing up on the bed to stare at the roof. He had a lot to just... _think_ about, and his gaze have been mostly glued at the big roof lamp in the middle of the room while his thoughts whirled on around in his mind. Sometime during those twenty minutes, he found himself recognizing the roof lamp in the back of his mind.

He gives a bit of a jolt when the woman finally enters, and rises from where he lies on the bed to a sitting position on the edge.

Matthew finds that he recognize the woman the second he lays his eyes on her; it is the woman with the angel wings.

She had been there when he first woken up.

After her the woman named Kimiko, comes in, only to act as a guard at the door.

"Hello, Mr. Mundy," she greets. "My name is, Mercy."

Mat immediately picks up on the slight accent of her voice, and his mind goes back to Medic as fast as lightning.

As it turns out, Mercy had a slightly German accent just as Medic... but _feminine_ (obviously), and light... just as an angel was supposed to sound like.

The sight of Medic's unmoving face on an operating table flashed in his mind, and Mundy himself feels himself drifting away to another flashback.

He tries really hard to stay in the present.

 _'Why didn't I pick it up when I heard her speak the first time?'_ He figures that there might have been too much else on his mind, and he was also under the effect of a strong sedative at the time.

 _"What's the matter?"_ Mercy asks, a bit alarmed when she sees his strained expression, as she approaches quickly to evaluate if there is anything that is visibly wrong with him.

He fights mentally in an attempt to stay in the present.

For half a second, he only finds it to grow worse, and he worries that he will cramp up again.

But then he gets the idea of imagining himself in a clearing... doing what he loved doing... _sniping._

 _'A bloody good job',_ as Mat would describe it.

When he's scoped in, his mindset is often, if not _always,_ **calm, in order to focus on his goal with no unnecessary distractions.**

If his mind is calm, he would always hit his mark with precision, and his movements would be more delicate and quiet. He proved to be effective when in a calm mindset, and he is _100%_ about being effective.

 _Being polite... being efficient,_ and his favourite — _Having a_ _plan to kill everyone he meets._

"You have the same tang as a late friend of mine," he answers after a few seconds with deep, slow breaths, as he finds the stress in his mind more manageable.

He doesn't get into more details about it, both that he doesn't really want to and that he doesn't want to lose a grip on his mind.

 _"Oh,"_ Mercy replies, sad to hear that his friend is dead, "Was this friend from Switzerland?"

"No, Germany."

"Then I understand the similarity. One of Switzerland's national languages is German, of course. I happen to be from there, and speak that same language. It was there that I learned much about medicine, and where I became a doctor." As she explains she brings up a pen and a notepad that she have hold on to when she have entered, but that Mundy have missed.

She begins to scribble down a few notes.

 _'He and you would have an easy time talking to each other,'_ Mat thinks to himself, referring to the dead Medic.

Mat finds it slightly funny that the first doctor who checks up on him just so happens to know German _and_ speak English with a slight German accent, just like Medic himself.

But it isn't funny as in comical... but more sad and cruel.

For a moment, he slips away from his focus again, from the image of sitting in the clearing, the stress intensifies. But then he collects his focus again, and quickly, the moment is over.

"Well, Mr. Mundy-," she begins, but doesn't get any further as Mat speaks over her..

 _"Please,"_ Mat interrupts as he massages his temples in a slumped position on the bed. "Just call me Mundy. Or better yet, call me, Sniper."

He was tired of being addressed by _'Mister',_ or even by his last name for that matter.

He didn't like it... it sounded way too formal for his liking, but it seems that both Mercy and Winston were just determined to call him 'Mr. Mundy'.

He first thought of asking her to call him by his first name, but then he changed his mind at the last second.

Only his parents did that, and they have long since been dead.

"As you wish, _Sniper,"_ Mercy corrects herself with a smile, now a bit more upbeat.

"What I can tell, is that you have _PTSD._ Short for, post-traumatic stress disorder."

"Figures," Mundy comments, as he suspected that he had a serious problem after the experiences with the flashbacks.

"From what I have heard from Winston, I suspect that your colleagues might very well have PTSD as well."

He nods, _"Yep."_

"I also suspect that they will have the same reaction when they wake up for the first time... as you have."

Matthew slowly looks up at Mercy.

The thought had hit him too, and it is nothing that he wishes for any of them.

Maybe not as much for the REDs as for the BLUs, but anyways,

Spy, Pyro, Heavy and Demoman have all been REDs, and all of them have been his enemies once. But that had all been before Gray and his bots. After that, and the death of Redmond and Blutarch, the mercenaries from both the REDs and the BLUs have realized that they aren't fighting for money anymore...

 _They were fighting to survive._

Even though the two halves of the group shared a great dislike for each other, it have appeared that somewhat of a fellowship have been created between them as they fought a common enemy.

A few have even come to call each other friends, who have earlier been antagonists. But the marksman have been one of the few exceptions to that. He had refused, and still refuses, to mingle with the REDs.

But even though, somehow, the fellowship might have affected him just a tiny bit, as he does feel an obligation to protect the whole team — _Even_ the half he likes the least.

Mundy did find out on a side note though, that Demoman is not as much as a 'wanker' as the rest of the bunch when it comes to celebrating.

It had happened once the marksman wanted to forget everything of Gray and resort to the reliable bottle with the drunkard.

That was a night that was just a blur in Mat's mind.

In other words, _a complete success._

He was happy to have known the Demoman on that day, and believed that the Scotsman couldn't be such a bad person after all...

 _But he was still a 'wanker'._

"So, do you have any plan for the eight others, do-." He interrupts himself, as he is in the middle of saying the nickname for the Medic.

He reminds himself that he needs to be calm, and that the other doctor is dead. Medic will not mind of him calling this female doctor in front of him for doc. _"Doc,"_ he forces himself to say, to prove that it won't cause no harm to just _say it._

"Oh, Winston must have forgotten to tell you," Mercy exclaims as the sadness comes back to her. "There is just seven of you now."

 _"Seven?"_ Horror creeps in slowly at who he might have lost while he was asleep.

"Yes... The one called, _Pyro..._ he died when… _it's?"_ She shrugged, _" It's cryo-bed_ _failed."_

When it comes to what gender to identify Pyro as, it is evident that Mercy is unsure on what term to use.

It was fair, because no one knew what was behind that mask either.

Not even a forensic surgery performed by an experienced doctor can show it.

The marksman don't know how to feel about that.

The Pyro was such a valuable asset to the mercenaries, as the team couldn't have withstand Gray as long as they managed to if not for Pyro. But the same could be said about all the mercenaries.

It wasn't like Mat spent much time with Pyro; in fact, the pyromancer is the one Matthew had spent the least amount of time with, and that _thing_ was part of _RED,_ a nagging fact he just can't seem to ignore.

"Well, that's…" Mat searches for a word that can fit while he tries to sound sincere, but has a hard time doing so. " _Unfortunate,_ " he decides after just a brief second.

Matthew can see that the small pause, together with the mild undertone of uncertainty, is noticed by Mercy.

She looks at him, with her head a bit on its side. The aussie panics just a bit to be perceived as cold instead, so his mind scrambles on how he should go about changing the subject.

 _That's when he notices the bruise that is barely visible under Mercy's locks of hair..._

 _"I'm sorry for... that,"_ he awkwardly says, and points to the area of his own head to clarify.

Even though it came out sounding _forced,_ he successfully brings enough empathy in his voice to show the woman that he is genuinely sincere of his apology. She was only trying to help after all, and he harmed her in return.

 _'I suspect that she was the one that I hurled into the wall,'_ he wonders to himself.

For a moment, Mercy doesn't give a comment on his apology, as she seems too focused on his strange reaction.

But then she does, and she quickly waves off his concerns.

"It's nothing, really," she ensures. "It is quite an experience to be the patient for once."

She then goes back to scribble down some more notes on her notepad.

"Well, Mr. Mu- I mean, _Sniper,"_ she re-stated, _"how do you feel at the moment?"_

"Right now? I feel fine," he replies, and it wasn't a lie.

He is reminded of Medic every time Mercy opens her mouth to speak, and he can feel the stress bulging in his mind when she conversed with him, but it is manageable at the moment.

 _And he had never been the type to talk about his problems._

Whenever he was feeling stressed or panicky, he only halted himself for a moment to listen to the _silence_ that he found so common in his loneliness.

Whether it have been in the forest far before the gravel war, or in his usual spot in his lookout tower during it.

 _"No illusions, fear, or rage?"_

"Nah, _none."_

He pauses here, as Mercy writes down a few more points in her notepad.

When she's done, she looks up at Mundy and gives him a small smile.

 _"That's good to hear._ But PTSD is not something that will go over by itself. You will surely get more attacks where your memories, and your feelings during those memories, will be brought back again in attacks that you'll surely remember. Therefore, I strongly suggest you to get treatment for it."

"Nah, Doc, I'll do fine," the marksman says, waving her suggestion away.

He's positive that he can just deal with the memories from here on out; _just look how well he's handling the **stress** he gets from Mercy's accent._

"Mr. Sniper, I'm afraid that I will not give you much choice in the matter," she announces as she crosses her arms.

Her voice and posture takes on of a more authoritative tone.

"I'm tellin' you, Doc, _I won't need it,"_ Matthew tries again, this time with some irritation that his actions were being commanded by someone he just met.

 _"And it's just, 'Sniper'."_ He repeats himself.

 _"And I'm telling you_ that you will be assigned to therapy sessions together with the others as soon as they all are awake," persists Mercy.

Mat feels that his nerve had been triggered, and that his irritation rises.

"Bloody hell- _I know my body and mind better than you ever will,_ thank you very much. I say that I go better off without any therapy sessions, and _absolutely_ **without** the sessions that those baboons are forced to go to."

Without letting go of her authority and with no irritation to show on her whatsoever, Mercy is unfazed by Mundy's ramble.

"I bet that those 'baboons' are not as bad as you give them out to be, Mr. Sniper, and I sure hope that you go to the same sessions as them. Or it will be very lonely for you when you just sit there by yourself on your own sessions."

His irritation reaches its peak quickly in this rate, Mat can feel it all too well against his own will.

Without his own permission his legs stands up on their own accord.

 _"I. WILL. **NOT.** GO. TO ANY SESSIONS."_ He insists, "I know those baboons the best of the two of us, I know that if they get together it will turn into a circus! And for the bloody third time — _it is ONLY, 'SNIPER'!"_ He huffs out, irritated.

There they stand in silence for just a moment.

Her with her 67 inches of height and her assertive demeanor.

Him with his 73 inches and his rebelling stance.

The moment drags on, until she finally speaks again.

 _"You will go to therapy sessions, period."_

It is only now that Matthew realizes that he had been holding in his breath, as it is now that he lets out an angry exclamation while he brings his hands in the air.

"And I will only start calling you _'Sniper'_ when I deem that you deserve it," she goes on without any bigger notice to his reaction.

 _ **The nerve of this doctor! **_

_'She's almost as irritating and disturbing as-'_

Matthew stops himself again.

He didn't want to hear it, he didn't even want to think about it. There was no way in hell and beyond that there is a reincarnation of _Medic_ standing in front of him.

 _There's just no way!_

And yet here, the very proof seems to stand straight ahead of him, with her arms crossed and an expectant look about her; like a parent would have to a child when they found out that they did something wrong.

Matthew takes a seat back on the bed, and looks away from the doctor.

He had enough of her. The damn prescriptions and her annoying similarity to Medic... He can take care of this problem by himself, like he did with most of his problems.

And when he wants help, _he'll ask for it._

"You better like the situation, Mr. Sniper," Mercy speaks and goes back to scribbling down new notes. "It will not change."

The marksman sighs to calm his nerves, and in the process looks up at the roof, more specifically at the lamp that hangs there, which looks familiar to _something_ specific he had seen before (He's seen lamps before, but this one reminded him of something specific).

With a click of his brain, he now knows where he'd seen it from.

It was based off the very same design used for the lamps in the kitchen of BLUs base.

He has mostly been in his van on the hours off, but when he finds his coffee to be out, he would go to the kitchen in hopes of finding more of the addictive fluid...

 _'Great, now I'm craving for coffee.'_

There's a sudden pounding on the door to the rest of the base, and Kimiko, who had been left completely forgotten until now, opens the door.

Both Mercy and Mat turn their attention towards the entrance in curiosity of the intrusion.

 _"Mei?_ What's the matter?" Kimiko asks with a hint of worry.

"It is one of the other mercenaries," a voice says, and Matthew recognizes the voice to belong to the other woman who have been there when he have woken up the first time.

The one with the hair stick... _Mat didn't know what the official terminology was for those._

He remembers the name from the second time he woke up.

 _'She must've been the one that I saw as a damn Sniper-Bot when I woke up the last time.'_

Mat's ears sharpen to hear what Mei had to say, picking up on the info that it is something about the other mercenaries.

"It is the one called, _'Scout',"_ Mei continues. "He is just beginning to wake up."

 _ **Scout?**_

He was the youngest of all the mercenaries, _barely_ 19 years of age, and is a fellow member of BLU.

He is called a boy by _everyone_ due to his young age and childish ways, but insists himself that he is _anything_ but that. Mat found him more irritating that most of the BLUs, because the boy wants to be _everywhere,_ to do _everything_ and have a snarky _'in-your-face'_ attitude...

How someone as, _Scout,_ had landed himself a as a mercenary was beyond Matthew, but despite it, he was still a _mercenary._

Even though the marksman finds the boy as distracting and irritating, Mat feels that a nagging worry starting to creep up on him.

He did somewhat _care_ for Scout... like a parent.

He assumed that all the BLUs feel somewhat of a parental responsibility for the youngest member, and that Scout will most likely experience what Mat had experienced when waking up…

 _Let's just say that the marksman's sympathy works as it should._

 _"Oh dear,"_ Mercy says, and prepares to get out thru the door together with Kimiko, "I must take care of this. Mr. Sniper, I will be back in a moment."

"Oi, hold on," Matthew shoots in and takes a stand from the bed, "You never told me your plan for when the other's wake up."

Mercy halts only as briefly as a quick glance back at the dangly marksman allows, "Truth be told, I don't really have one," she admits quickly, "But the best bet is to hold him down until the worst is over, if it turns out that he has PTSD."

It might be the action that is the best, even though it might not sound that _appealing._ Mat would know because he has lived through it himself, "If that's the case, _**I**_ want to be the one that holds him down," Mundy says as he nears the doctor and the exit.

"Mr. Sniper, you really shouldn't," Mercy insists, _"You should stay here and rest."_

Matthew only finds himself annoyed at Mercy's suggestion. He doesn't want to be coddled with; he feels strong enough to move around, and therefore _qualified_ in his own mind to do this. After all, he overpowered a great ape and two women in the matter of a minute only a little more than an hour before. Then there is also the irritation of that formal _'Mister'_ that Mercy continues to address him by...

 _"I gotten enough rest,"_ he ensures, irritation apparent in his tone, "And don't you think his awakening _might_ go smoother if there is someone he actually _recognizes_ in the room?"

Mercy holds up to swiftly observe the marksman, a look that tries to uncover if there is any other agenda for Mundy to do this.

As he confidently walks past her, Kimiko and Mei, Matthew can feel her eyes on him, together with the stare of the other two women, but is relieved to not hear any objections whatsoever. On the way out, he gets a good look at Mei, and feels a bit guilty over what he sees.

Her face had a noticeable oval bruise over her face, and she takes a few quick steps back as he passes with a mildly worried expression to be near him.

Mat takes a mental note to say 'sorry' to her when he gets time.

"What are you waiting for?" he speaks as he comes out into the hallway outside his quarters, "Will any of you take the lead, or what?"

Mei jogs forward to the front of the group before she slows down to a rapid walk, and the rest of them follow suit.

Matthew is right behind her, Mercy and Kimiko take up the rear. Mundy hides a thankful smile that he is allowed to take care of this.

He surprises himself a bit with this; he had never figured himself to do something like this. Yet here he is, on his way to what he can only foresee to be a situation where he comforts an irritating, egotistic, immature adult.

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Somewhere in Hamada, Japan_

The ghost of grey steel stays as quiet as a shadow, and as still as a rock. It looks down on what's under him, from where he half lies, half crouches on the horizontal support beam in the old factory house in the style of 1920 architecture.

It was a long way down from the floor, surely a 15-20 meter drop. Where the ghost sits, it is virtually undetected in the darkness, as the crude lightings that the building have, are seated on the underside of the very beams he is on.

Grey's ghost would only be detected if it would make a sound, or if someone below would just happen to look up where the phantom is with a flashlight.

The latter option would be the most probable, even though that the option did have a low chance of happening.

Genji Shimada is in what first looks to be a full body armor of steel and metal.

Many of the contemporary citizens can mistake him for what is called an _'Omnic',_ which in itself, _isn't completely untrue._

He is in the _core_ a human, but many of his limbs have been replaced with mechanical parts.

He's a deadly ninja with precise efficiency, and one of the best in the art of sword-to-sword combat, preferably _a katana..._

 _Currently, this ninja is out on an important recon mission of his own..._

Below him, there are a group of people, which is discussing in low, hushed voices. Most of them are humans, but there is also just a few omnics amongst them, too.

Their clothes are mixed; some are dressed in smoking and the likes, others have more casual clothing, like hoodies and jeans. What they are speaking about is half clear, and the echo of their voices that bounces between the empty walls only makes it sound like a low murmur of a crowd. Despite it, Genji did have a general idea of what they were talking about.

In the middle of the people below there is a big object that is covered in a big cloth.

Occasionally the people around it are glancing at it, pointing at it or, carefully patting it. Their all edgy around the mysterious big package, and there is soon proven to be of good reason.

 _"Friends,"_ there comes a voice in Japanese, louder than the others.

The murmur dies out immediately, and leaves it easy to hear this new voice. The one that owns it comes forward from the entrance, dressed in a white shirt and black pants.

It is the voice of a male human, but Genji can't see his face from this angle. The man seems to be in his late thirties or early forties.

"Welcome to the party," the man continues, still in Japanese. "I'm glad that everyone could make it."

The man places himself not that far from one of the edges of the big package, as all eyes in the room draw toward him.

"I have gathered you all here for an important reason. My benefactor is interested in hiring, and considers to take in all of you — From the lower criminal rings to the higher." As he speaks the last phrase, he first extends one hand to the group in the casual clothing, then one hand to the group of the more classy clothing.

"The goal of the mission in question is… _well,_ you will all find out if you accept it," the man continues as he brings his arms down to his sides, "I am not allowed to tell of the mission until the consent is given from you. For those who refuse, you simply will not find out at all."

"How dangerous is it?" asks an omnic, with the colors of white and red.

The metal-man speaks in Japanese, too. "Will it be hard?"

"Yes, it is," nods the man, truthfully, "It is therefore the reward is as high as it is."

"Here is something that I guess everyone in here is interested in," speaks one human up, a woman, in Japanese. This one, though, had a heavy American accent.

Genji cringes a bit at the pronunciation, but lets the american continue on with his sentence, "What will we get in returns for our effort? _Are you allowed to mention that?"_ she asks.

"Of course," says the man in the white shirt, "A fair question. As the reward for your services, my benefactor is ready to pay with weapons, ammunition, vehicles, _money_ or whatever assets your organizations acquires. Whatever you want, and how much you want."

Here the man halts to let the approving murmurs rise and die out, _"AFTER,_ the mission is done you will get what you have asked for, _not before._ And the reward will only be delivered if my benefactor finds your services fully fulfilled."

Looks are shared between the summoned crowd, and the second after hushed discussions ensues. Half a minute went by before the voices died down. One after one, the people agree to the conditions, until all in the room have sworn allegiance to the man in the white shirt.

 _"Good,"_ the man says and walks up to the package, "then I guess that I have the liberty to say what you all have a roll in to do." He puts his hands on the cloth that covers whatever that is underneath, and shoves it to the side.

A giant warhead is revealed, and a collective gasp is heard in the room.

Genji himself can't help to slip out a small puff of air.

After a third murmur comes from the small crowd, from the little the ninja can hear from the sound of voices, the group had heard a rumor that there might have been explosives. But it turns out that everyone was surprised to find a weapon of such... _mass destruction,_ inside the building.

 _"My friends,"_ the man in the white shirt hushes the crowd, a wicked smile falling over his face, _**"You are to plunge the world into disorder."**_

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Benjamin "Ben" Radcliff's first conscious thought is that of his dry throat.

He figures that he had slept for a while with his mouth open.

He tries to swallow a few times to get moisture back inside, and frowns a bit when he finds that it's taking slower than usual.

 _'Maybe I should go get a glass of water.'_

He stays reluctant for a long time before doing so, as he finds himself extremely comfortable just laying in bed asleep.

He doesn't feel great; his head is hazy and throbs so badly, that he wouldn't believe it.

"It feels like I'm sick... _Maybe I should just stay here for the day,"_ he mumbles.

With a groan, he finally decides after a long-spun moment to go for short trip to the kitchen if it means to get rid of his dry throat.

He opens his eyes for the first time, and immediately flinches away from the bright light with a surprised grunt.

 _He didn't remember leaving the light **on** in his room the other night..._

 _His frown deepens._

There's a lot he didn't remember last night… like,

 _the whole night._

 _... Neither the whole day._

"Ugh. _Did I even go to bed last night?"_ he asks, _"I can't even remember."_

His confusion only worsens once his eyes adjusts to the light and has a look around of his surroundings.

He finds himself not to be in his bedroom, as he have assumed from the beginning, but a room that is completely _foreign_ to him.

He sits up with a jerk, with his dry mouth forgotten in a heartbeat.

His eyes dart around on everything in the small room, from the one-way mirror, the intercom and the camera to all the machines that he can best describe as something out from his sci-fi magazines that he usually reads when free time is a given!

He takes a few moments of wordless struggle to solve this conundrum, and the only thing that comes out of it is more throbbing pain inside his head.

The loss of memory that he swears that he should have can't just disappear on him! He must've done something to get to where he is...

Then his eyes settles on one single spot; _his own reflection in the mirror._

For a moment, he doesn't understand that he's actually observing himself, but when he finally does... he has trouble accepting it.

He had thinned down considerably in the face.

 _'Ma ain't gonna like that,'_ he thinks to himself.

He finds himself think that sentence out of reflex, as he had done the exact same thing before trouble hits the fan, or when he figures out just how _big_ the problem he really dug himself into.

On numerous times of his childhood, he'd gotten into trouble, some times of his own making, and other times it is of his seven older brothers' making.

Yes, he had _**SEVEN**_ brothers, all of them with a knack for making trouble of themselves, and _all_ older than him.

The one with the biggest talent for trouble though, is the runt of the litter; _little Benjamin Radcliff._

However, no one can call him little, he _hates_ being told he was _little._ Despite his disdain, his brothers had called him that _way too much_ for his liking.

 _Mothers wouldn't like their kids to be in any kind of trouble, right?_

Of course not, _Benjamin gets that._

So his mother had, as every mother did to a trouble magnet of a son, told him time and time again to stay **_OUT_** of trouble.

Ben finds it very irritating that staying out of trouble goes often as well as teaching a fish how to fly, much to his mother's concern. His mom also wanted him to gain just a _few_ pounds in weight, as she thinks that the runt of her sons is just a _tiny bit too scrawny._

Now, when Ben gets to see his emaciated face, this is the first thing he thinks of.

When he looks down on his body, he notices that his whole _indeed_ thinned down.

 _'Ma won't like that.'_

The phrase comes to him again, as he realizes that something must be _very_ wrong. He definitely remembers having more to his body than the distinctive _skeleton_ he is currently looking at.

He sees bumps on his knees that reflects slightly in the bright light, and it takes a moment for him to understand that those bumps are not supposed to be there, neither the scars that surround them. He is then forced to make a double take of his whole body, and as he sees that the bumps are not only on his legs, but there are two on each of his arms and legs, as well as four embedded in his chest, additional scars are on his wrists and ankles...

It is from the first look of the straps that Ben starts to remember some of the events that his mind had slipped off without him ever even knowing.

The memories come back slowly at first, but the that he remembers, the faster it all comes back.

The pain tears into his mind and his body as sudden as the drop of a coin.

His body cramps up and his screams comes on its own free will, as he is sent into a flashback that he would never want to relive again.

He remembers _everything,_ and it is all unbearable. He fights against the leather straps that he holds him down, as his screams of mercy and his mother mixes together with the pained sounds of the others, but it seems that it's the only thing that he can do, as the flashback plays its course. He remembers that he had been between The Spy and The Demoman, as the two of them sound the closest.

He can't be sure though, as at times, _everything_ would just mash together into just one loud murmur in the background when the pain gets too intense for him to bear.

Suddenly the leather straps that holds Ben, tightens around him.

The panic grows, and he tries to struggle even more. The straps only gets a better grip around him. A tear began to stream down his cheek, as he believes that this is the end of him.

 _'Their gonna cut my friggin' heart out! They gonna let me **bleed** to death!'_

His fanatic mind brings back his mother, of all the times she have told him to stay out of trouble, of the times she hugged him, the times she kissed a scraped knee when he had been really little... good memories of her, clouding his mind.

He calls out to her- _screams_ for her, and pleads for the pain to just _stop._

 _His surroundings slowly **change** ,_ and the screams from the other mercenaries fade away, little by little.

The bright light from the little room with the one-way mirror gets more pronounced.

The knives disappears into thin air, together with the medibots and their cold, unmoving faces. The pain remains the longest, but after a while that too slowly goes away. His own screams die down to a series of whimpering and silent sobs.

But there is one thing that refuses to go away; _the tightness around him._

He believes for a few moments that he hadn't escaped the operation, that he is still being held idle by the leather straps of the operating table. He realizes at the end that there are no straps that hold him, but a pair of strong arms... And they aren't holding him down to the bed, their cradling him up in a slight seated position — A hold that keeps his arms close to his body and slightly rocks him back and forth.

He also noticed that something is right in front of his face that blocks some of the light, something that a gentle hand presses his head against; a compact wall of something that is warm, a bit hard and… _strangely soothing._

He is suddenly aware that deaf heartbeats fills the ear that is tightly squeezed to the wall, and figures out that the wall he sees must be someone's chest cage.

He wonders for the smallest fraction if it is his mother that had come to save him from the pain...

 _But it isn't her;_ the distinct sweet smell that she had is not the strange odor that invades Ben's nostrils. It _must_ be someone else, which tightly holds him in their arms.

 _"Please don't hurt me anymore,"_ Benjamin Radcliff cries weakly between sobs, _"… please, don't… I just… j-j-just want to go home… t-to my Ma."_

There is a small pause before Ben gets an answer, and when he hears who it is he finds himself in surprise and shock.

"Don't worry, Scout," says the voice, that sounds exactly as Sniper's, in a reassuring voice. "I'm not gonna hurt one of my own."

Ben hadn't expected Sniper at all, neither does the boy know how the other man could have escaped the cryo-bed or Gray. _He doesn't even know how he himself have gotten out of the cryo-bed!_

There is a small halt, where Ben strains his neck to look up at Sniper, to see if it really is him.

Indeed, Ben didn't mistake the voice; the dangly marksman is really standing there by the side of the bed, and closely holds the runner's upper body in the arms.

He can say that he knows Sniper well, but not this well, and Ben is also pretty sure that this is nothing the older man does often... _ever, for that matter._

Does Sniper even hug or show any connection to his _own_ mother? _His own parents?_

The runner wouldn't know, it's not like he's been home to the other man.

Sniper usually tends to avoid other people completely in favor of the privacy of his lookout tower.

 _The man was just a withdrawn guy... very reserved._

Ben suspects that the sight must be strange.

In his normal state of mind, he would _never_ get the idea to hug or let be hugged by any other people, other than his mother or his brothers.

Least of all the mercenaries that he have worked with the last three years of his life.

If any of them would hug him, Benjamin would probably immediately run the furthest distance away from them.

He agrees that this would look really suspicious, and wonders if any of his brothers would take to call him teasing names if they ever get to know about this.

But right now, the soothing presence of someone, who just wanted to comfort him with a shoulder to cry on, is just what the boy needs.

So, when Ben feels more tears threatening to come down his cheeks, he doesn't care if it looks strange or suspicious. He digs his face into the fabric that covers Sniper's chest, and lets his sorrow and pain roll out in the protecting arms of the older man.


	4. Chapter 3

**Hello. Sorry for the long wait, I took a little hiatus there. This chapter is a little shorter than usual, but instead I have a bit of a longer author note. I feel like I need to clear a thing; my betareader, ShizzySavage16, didn't get it and it hit me that you, the readers, might not get it either. It is in chapter 1, Sniper gets really strong in the end there. Maybe that seems uncharasteristic for him. I will give you the same explanation to you as I gave to ShizzySavage16, and this is a straight quote that I wrote to Shizzy:**

 ** _"W_** ** _hat I wanted to demonstrate is that when he, or when any of the mercs, really, gets into that "rage" mode they reck havoc. They can't see straight, and can only think on what Gray did to them and want to tear him apart for that. That gives them the ability to reach for a overhuman strenght that they really didn't realized that they had... if that makes any sense. So that's why he seems so strong in that part, but because I knew that he was physically weak, I made it so that he sort of collapsed after a while. He had no more strenght to give with the body he have."_**

 **There you have it. That's why Sniper is so strong in that scene.**

 **I also like to ask for a bit of a help. As I have written several chapter in advance, I find it that it grows harder for the bad guys of the story to keep up. What I mean is that there is far to many good guys in the battle. Just look on all the characters that are good in the Overwatch universe. It is 21 good guys and only 8 bad guys. And that's without including the 7 living mercheneries. That's why I like you, if you like to, to send me OC's. Especially evil OC's. They will not get a cameo in a while, as I have written several chapters in advance, and they might not get such a big part of the story. If I think it is good, however, they might get a bigger role. It is just to make the battle more even. Here is what I want to know about them.**

 ** _Name:_**

 ** _Gender:_**

 ** _Age:_**

 ** _Nationality:_**

 ** _Evil or good:_**

 ** _Weapons:_**

 ** _Abilitys (both what the ability's name is and a bit on what it is all about):_**

 ** _Summary (as detailed as possible, please! Like why he/she turns good/evil, a bit of his/hers childhood and so on):_**

 **And that's that. Without further ado, here is the chapter.**

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

When it came to Matthew, he had some troubles on his own. Troubles that came to him in his sleep in the form of horrifying nightmares, just as Mercy warned him.

For a couple of days, even a little more than a week, his nightmares have had the same recurring theme.

Endless struggles against mechanized foes, screams that he recognizes as his comrades' mixed with his own, his parents asking him where he's gone to, only for him to return no answer, and tight leather straps that hold him down as sharp knives cuts and seeps into his skin.

It always feels like an eternity before he succeeds to wake himself up, and when he finally wakes up he is always covered in cold sweat.

Only his own stubbornness and his own principles stops him from going to Mercy, all just to seek help for the returning nightmares he's been having in these past days.

When he claims that he doesn't need help and that he is in perfect health — he stands by it. No doctor should say otherwise, as he thinks that there is nothing left to argue against. Mat only needed some time to deal with his new bearings, to get himself into his old shape and then get going with his life. He thinks that the nightmares are to end after a certain time, and to strengthen his belief in it, he repeats it over and over to himself both out loud and in his mind. He tells himself that it's just his mind playing tricks on him, and that it will soon fade away to a harmless memory.

But something that he has not yet learned is that a memory can hurt you, even how _little_ it may be.

He remembers that as he ages, his tendency to get 'scared' lowers as well, and after a few years as an animal hunter in his thirties, he could honestly say that 'fears' are almost nonexistent, which was a very good thing too... _especially when it was the time to hunt humans instead of animals._

Despite this, there is always that tiny worry that one of the jobs he takes might bring troubles to either himself or to his parents in the end, but as long as he remains anonymous, he reckons that everything will turn out fine. So the fear of anything happening to his parents because of his profession was the last thing on his mind when he signed the contract and joined up with the mercenaries of BLU.

The small side note on that contract, for the mercenaries were to only address each other by their titles, suited him just fine. He was certain that everything he thought good with the contract outweighed the bad.

One, he was bound to have a steady income for a long, _long time._ Two, the hours that he had been given suit him just fine. Three, the higher-ups mostly keep to themselves, and are very confidential, which only gives him less to worry about... only thing he needed to do, was do his job.

Now, though, he began to _really_ reconsider his choice to sign that contract.

His parents are dead and he is left to live a life a full century into the future... or one century _too late_ as he refers to it. On top of that, he is plagued with nightmares and visions, which refuse to stop when even when he is _convinced_ that he will be rid of it soon.

In these days that he spends alone in his quarters, he not only begins to realize the weight in the decision he made in signing the contract with BLU, but the fate of his parents is starting to sink in completely as well.

 **His parents are dead.**

Dead, buried (hopefully) and gone for good, never to be seen again...

As Matthew lies awake at the nights during the days that go by, unable to sleep in fear because of the nightmares and the anxiety that the death of his parents brings to him, he tries to remember the last time he had a conversation with them...

 _Really_ talking to them, hearing their voices, not only writing to them.

He remembers...

It was an argument over the phone with his dad again. It was about the usual topic; Mat's choice of occupation, and of how his father haven't approved of it one bit. Matthew's dad was completely fine with him being a hunter, but as soon as word reached out that the supposed 'animal hunter' had gone from hunting animals to hunting _HUMANS..._

The problems started to arise...

 _"I'm not a crazed gunman, Dad! I'm an assassin! ... Well, the difference being, one is a job and the other's mental sickness!"_ He argued.

How many times the marksman resorted with those words — _he doesn't know._ As many times his father have called him a crazed gunman... _that too,_ _he doesn't know._

The holy Days have never been the same since the change in his profession, and that he could promise. They have been less holy and more awkward, despite how much his mother tried to liven up the atmosphere.

Matthew can't say that he was a person who's susceptible to crying. The tears never seemed to come to him since his younger years. On that third day, after he had awoken for the second time, when he remembered his last talk with his parents have been in the form of the usual verbal brawl with his father and then some half-weird, half-heartedly words with his mother that usually is what follows... _his tears start to roll like the they have never done before in Mat's entire life._

The days stock on him until he loses all sense of time. After the first three days of constant mourning, his sense of time completely leaves him, and the days and the nights crashes together into each other to create a blur of raw emotions comes over him one after the other. Most of that time he spends lying on top of the bed in the living quarters he was provided with, and stares up at the lamp in the roof that reminds him so much of the one in the kitchen in the BLU's headquarter.

Emotionally, he fluctuates between feeling completely empty, furious and depressed, an odd sensation for a man that considers his entire adult life prior to _this_ as _stable_ _._ But at the entire time, he doesn't scream. He doesn't talk or make much of a sound. He only goes from letting the tears shed from his eyes, to not resisting when the tears become too much to handle, back and forth, and back and forth... _all in silence._

At times, he would've just ventured out into the world beyond the door of his living quarters, either to get a snippet of food or just to get a short walk around the building together with an escort. But that stopped completely after the third day of being plagued with these damn nightmares. He doesn't even come out to eat, and the only thing that he gets into his stomach is the occasional, essential water he drinks at the times he is able to get up and go to the private bathroom.

Even when he drinks water, he feels forced to swallow, and after the end of the week he doesn't even drink any water.

His mind is at a standstill when he hears the door open. His mind must have been still for the last two or three days, but that's nothing that Matthew can remember at the moment. Right now, he can barely focus his eyes on the lamp as he lies on the bed, a spot where he barely moved from in the bigger part of the last week. The storm that has been his emotions seems to finally come to a standstill, but that is to be proven as a deception so **false** , _he himself can't see it._

In truth, he is merely in the eye of the storm.

"Mr. Sniper, get up," the voice of Mercy speaks, accompanied with oncoming footsteps. Matthew doesn't even make an effort to look over at her, and he doesn't even show that he's registered her words. He doesn't even show any annoyance that the doctor referred to him by the less preferable _'Mr. Sniper',_ than just 'Sniper'.

He shows absolutely no indication of her even being there by the side of his bed.

 _"Please, get up, Mr. Sniper,"_ she tries again from where she stands by the bedside, more determined this time, but to no avail.

A few silent moments goes by before she speaks up again with the same determination as before.

"If you don't come up from that bed and get something into that stomach of yours right now, Mr. Sniper, I'll have Winston get over here to feed you by force," she exclaimed.

"If you don't come to the infirmary for your monthly medical checkup right now, Sniper, I'll have Heavy come out to that dump on wheels you call a van to retrieve you."

The memory of Medic's voice through the outdoor speakers comes back to Matthew like a flash of lightening; fast, bright and sudden.

That only triggers his brain to state the fact, which had surely been stated so many times in the later period, that Medic is dead. The one that takes care of the team's health with the stern tone that is more associated of a proper teacher from a boy's school in the middle of the 1850's. The one that expects you to go by the rules at all times, to come where you're needed in time and to be proper until your very death, and if you don't... _well, he'd_ ** _make_** _you do it._

And having an extra helping hand from the colossal Heavy couldn't hurt either, especially when it came to the more rowdy lot of BLU's Mercenaries.

Medic is - or has been, if Matthew were to stay correct - the only one to have spoken to the team in that way since… _ever, actually._

A few of them can't even recollect if any schoolteachers or their own parents have given them such a treatment similar to Medic's. At least it was proven to be effective, especially when it came to the monthly checkups, Medic has been very finicky about those. And nothing of it's changed when the RED and the BLU have joined forces against Gray and his robots. Medic hasn't made any differences between the earlier foes from his allies, as they all have been fighting this new common enemy; the moment Gray appeared had erased whatever difference there was between the two colors, making them obsolete towards the Doctor as well.

The BLUs despise the RED, and the RED despise the BLU. It was only the common hate and hostility for the third Mann brother that made all of them work together. They have barely warmed up to each other at the time when Gray overcame them.

So is it unusual that Matthew's eyes darts open at the memory of Medic's voice?

Is it strange for him to slowly rise up from the bed and stand over Mercy? Is it wrong for him to get an itch to kill her where she stands to make him think on the past even more?

 _Yes_ on all three, probably.

 _"Winston?"_ Matthew inquires, his voice steady and normal to a beginning. "Winston? Hmph. What will you have that big hairball do once he gets here exactly? What if I don't want to get up?"

 _"… you're already standing."_ Mercy points out.

He shot an unimpressed stare at her, "No thanks to you or the monkey." It's here that his voice starts to slowly, but steadily rise with every word. "In fact, I don't want neither of you here."

Mercy shrugged, "You have no choice in the matter, Mr. Sniper, much like I have told you before. I'm the doctor, _you're the patient,_ and let me inform you that you are a guest, _our guest._ You can leave whenever you want. Nothing's holding you back."

"I'm no patient, there's nothing wrong with me!" Matthew scowled out.

Mercy's eyebrow rises a bit at that, but otherwise choosing to keep quiet and remain calm... not that she gets a _chance_ to speak back at the moment, as Mat continues without any pause while he glares on at her. His voice keeps growing loud, as he feels that the only thing he wants is to pour everything he feels out into his words, to get rid of what he experiences on the inside... as if he can _cut_ them out. All of his feelings that are whipped up, feelings so dark and so powerful that he didn't know he could feel. With those, he figures there is only one true way to get rid of them, _and that is to_ _kill_ _someone._

He realizes then and there, that there's only one person to kill that will make everything better; _a certain man in grey..._

"What is wrong, however, is what that bloody poofter, Gray Mann did to us! _Bloody hell-_ he had us tortured!" He growled out, "He had some of us killed! That he did this," he points at the ports on his body, "for no other reason than his sick amusement! He then puts on hold for an eternity, all the while he went and erased every trace of us! I can't even know what happened to my parents!"

He ends the sentence with a harmful scowl, along with all the anger he feels about it. He then goes abruptly quiet, his still and enraged eyes only for the doctor in front of him, his body shaking from his outburst and with his breath heavy in his throat.

Mercy had not reacted the slightest to the scene right in front of her; she just stood there, with her arms folded and a brow raised.

After a quiet moment, where Matthew tries and fails to collect himself, he speaks again, his voice dripping with rage

 _"When I find that bastard, Gray... I will do things to him that you can't even imagine, doc."_

"What makes you so sure he is even still alive?" Mercy asks, clearly in belief that Gray is dead and buried since long.

"Then sod it! I'll will just have to do with his rotting corpse then!"

Mercy observes Matthew in silence as he tries to get his shaking fists under control, with knuckles that are colored white from how _tightly_ they are clasped together. It's not only his fists that shake, but his entire being, _even his breath._ It is only in this silence, after he's gotten some of the negativity out of him, that he can get the shaking under control.

"... I guess that you've gotten yourself a goal in life," she observes, "even though I don't agree with it in the slightest."

"You can bet that shiny doctrine of yours I have."

"I also guess that while you try to succeed in this goal of yours, you will come out of this room, socialize with the rest of us and eat a healthy diet on a regular basis, right?"

"I guess I have to now." He agrees with a shrug.

"And to accept my treatment?" At that, the marksman gives her a tense stare as he doesn't grant it with a response. She only answers it with an expectant look. "You will only be gaining from it," she adds, "I have observed you through my cameras."

His brows goes through the roof as he looks around the room in an attempt to find any cameras... but he fails.

He then goes back to stare at Mercy with the same tense stare, but after a moment of that expectant glance of hers, he finds that he has to look away with a grumble, finally coming to the agreement that she was right.

 **Mercy's too much like Medic.**

"Fine... _Maybe,"_ he gets out with a low, strained voice.

"That's not good eno-,"

"Bloody hell, fine!" He gives in and throws his hands in the air. "You hear me? Fine!"

Satisfied with the result, Mercy takes the lead and walks out of the room with a grumpy man out of the room. "Oh, by the way," she says on the way out the door, as she don't even turns to face him. "My real name is Angela Ziegler."

Matthew gives her an unimpressed stare, not paying mind to it at all.

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Ben wants to be alone.

That's everything he wants at the moment. He's lost everything he had; his family, his friends and the very world he lived in. Therefore, he only wants some time to be alone and think.

 _But Tracer seemed to be of another mind, unapproving of how isolated he wished to be._

"Mercy doesn't like it for you to be alone, that's all," she says when he tells her to leave him alone, "and quite frankly, I don't either." She adds. She follows him wherever he goes, even when he goes outside.

As the two of them go out, the air suddenly becomes heavy with an oncoming storm. The black clouds could clearly be seen along the distant horizon... but despite this, Ben continues onwards, onto the lawn that is outside the base. There he stands for a good while, with his back towards the base and towards Tracer.

Tracer frowns at the boy, "Come on, luv', we should go inside." She pleads after a moment of silence. She sighs, "Please, there's gonna be rain any second now..."

Ben groans, _"Can_ ** _you_** _go inside? I wanna stay here for a while, so just go."_ He requests with an irritated tone.

Tracer shot a brow at him, _"And let you get wet?"_ Her frown gets bigger, "You're gonna get sick! And with this PTSD, it might just be too much to handle!"

 _Why couldn't she just leave him_ _alone_ _?_

"Jheez, I just wanna be alone for once. Get some peace 'n quiet, and I don't care if that means gettin' wet. Just go back in, I'll stay here. I dunno', you can... watch me from one of the windows or something." He suggested, his patience running at a fast pace.

There's a moment's silence before Tracer speaks again, and in that little window of silence, the water drops suddenly start to fall on their heads.

This time she is more determined, and it really is heard in her voice. "Please. We should go inside, and we should do it now." She persists.

Anger rises within Benjamin, and as he turns to her that anger is visible in his eyes. "Then go! Why the hell should I even be inside?! What is this, _a jail?!"_

Tracer gets the same anger in her eyes, and her tone reflects that, "Why you should be so bloody thick-headed is seriously beyond me. Why be outside and get wet for no damn reason? Does it really mean so much for you to be alone?"

"YEAH, I WANNA BE ALONE!" He yells.

And that's when it happens.

He takes a few steps closer to Tracer to give her a push, but just as he takes the first step, his legs fold beneath him and he falls to the ground. A sudden headache travels up to his temple, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Gray with a few bots at his side.

That smirk is at Gray's lips, that damned smile that he so often had on the few occasions that the mercenaries had seen him... but just like _that..._

 _The illusion is gone._

Together with the headache.

Ben slowly regains his footing and breathes slowly at his questionable balance, uncertain if his legs could manage his body weight for some time...

 _It does._

"Your legs gave out," Tracer observes with a low voice. She sounds concerned, as the anger that was with her earlier is blown away. "I saw it, luv'." Ben sees it on her that she wants to go and get Mercy.

He huffs with a smirk that said otherwise, "No, they didn't. You're seeing stuff..." he groans as he shakes his head in disappointment, _"You're delusional,"_ he says.

That last part... the word 'delusional', seems to hit Tracer really hard, as she seems to halt where she is. Her expression grows very dark and she remains quiet for a moment...

Ben raises a brow at her, put off by her sudden silence. He contemplates opening his mouth to say something, but is beat to it.

 _"Fine,_ _be that way._ Stay out here and get wet. Get **sick** , for all I care. But don't come to me and complain about it later."

With that she goes back to the building, and leaves Ben out in the rain that only gets worse by the second. He looks after her, with irritation evident in his face, "Good riddance..." he mutters under his breath and turns his back to her and the house.

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

"Ben, I heard that you and Tracer had somewhat of a conflict."

After half an hour of staring nowhere else than on his own lap on today's therapy session, Benjamin finally looks up to face Mercy from where he sits. A reluctant Matthew is sitting by his side, and cooks up a storm of mutter of how he really don't need to be there. In fact, the first half hour of the session the doctor has spent to coax somewhat of a good conversation between her and the huntsman without bigger success, all the while she writes down notes.

It's progress regardless because the marksman decided to show up, and for that, Mercy is grateful.

"Yeah, we did." Ben confirms boringly, trying not to make too much of an issue out of it.

"Can you please tell me what happened?"

It takes a moment for him to answer, as he first wonders why she would know that.

He assumed that Tracer must've told her after all, "Okay, uhh… It was a few days ago. I wanted to go outside for a bit, and she came with... I didn't even want her following me. It was starting to rain, and she wanted me to get inside. I said 'nah', and I told her that she could go inside and watch me from one of the windows. That's when she gets angry, right, and goes frickin' ballistic! That's pretty much all of it." He explains.

"I have heard from Tracer that it was a bit more to it than that." Mercy gets an expectant look, as she often gets at these occasions. Radcliff have not failed to notice that.

Ben gets mildly irritated and starts to grumble to himself much like Matthew beside him. The runner doesn't answer, but instead looks away, "Mr. Scout, the whole story, _please."_

Ben huffs with a scowl planted on his face, "I can't help it that she has a hard time to let go of…" he trails of a bit as the scowl grows. He meets Mercy's look again with anger in his eyes. "I slipped and she just kept on going that I wasn't fine. _I just slipped, alright?"_

"According to her, your legs gave in. You didn't slip." She says.

His eyes narrow at her, "Don't you start, too."

Mercy blinks, "Start what?"

The runner takes a breath in an attempt to get his growing anger under control.

Matthew stops his grumbling and starts to pay attention, his curiosity peaked just a little even when he tries not to.

 _"Okay,_ it was more to it than that," Ben gives in, but is still stubborn on one little detail, _"I slipped,"_ he goes on as he gives somewhat of an evil eye at the doctor, "she got worried and wanted to get you. I said no, that I got it under control, but she didn't give in. We went back and forth a bit until she got enough and goes I don't know where... Happy?"

"Happier, but far from thrilled," she speaks and purses her lips just a bit in disapproval as she writes down a few more notes. When she's done, she stares hard down at Ben with a stern face. Both of the men notice that this is not her typical 'you better watch yourself' face, that she is really angry right now, "Mr. Scout, do you know what Tracer's speciality is?"

Benjamin gets an odd feeling in his stomach at the use of the word speciality, and somewhat of a foreboding feeling comes to his mind. He shakes his head, "No..."

She thinks for a moment how to describe it the best before she opens her mouth. "... The basic of it is that she can travel in time."

She gets unbelieving looks from the other two, which she expected. "I know how it sounds, _but it is true._ She can travel in time, but only to a limited ability. How she got that specific skill, you can ask her yourself; I only want to speak about the ability itself and the effects it has on her. I can't guarantee that she answers, though..." she shoots Ben a glare, a quiet accusation of a wrongdoing that the runner still doesn't really understands that he made.

"Her speciality is, in some limited sense, to travel in time," she continues, "more specifically, she can wind herself, and only herself, back or forward in time by a few seconds as the rest of the world continues on as normal. Some would rather call it that she 'blinks' back and forth."

"That don't sound like anything sensible in my ears," Mat admits and shares a look with the runner.

"Sounds like something out of a TV-series," Benjamin thinks. "Like, 'Doctor Who' — _Which is just_ ** _awesome_** _, by the way."_

"What does?" Matthew wonders. "'Doctor Who', or the fact that someone can travel in time?" The aussie then stares at Mercy with a frown, that clearly tells that all he wants is to escape the session, "Or is it that this sheila over here, this _doctor,_ wants us to think that time travel is really possible?" He scoffs, _"And she says that we need help."_

"You may say whatever you want, Mr. Sniper," she informs him with an indifferent look, "but you will not get out of my sessions until I say so." A silent and sarcastic 'whoopee' is heard from Matthew under a grumble, but other than that he doesn't make any other fuzz and looks away.

Mercy continues, "Anyways, Tracer can do this, but this ability did come along with some inconveniences... like, that contraption on her chest? That is to help her control this unique ability. Without it she jumps without any restrain whatsoever, so she must always wear it. But before she got it, well…"

"… she just jumped back and forth with no stop?" Ben assumes.

"Yes." Mercy looks at him right in the eye with a serious expression.

"Back and forth, _back and forth,_ again and again and again. Never able to stop it, never able to control it. For a while she thought that she had lost her mind, that she wasn't real. So to call her crazy, to call her _delusional,_ can really get to her." Mercy looks down a bit, with sadness and concern shown in her face, "Even if the incident was quite a while ago, it still affects her greatly."

For a moment there is only silence in the room. Both Matthew and Benjamin have been caught up in their own troubles to understand that these people, these friendly folks that have done nothing but to try to help them, might very well have problems too.

And they're right.

But after a while, Mercy clears her throat and looks at the two men in front of her in turn. "As I understand it, you two don't know each others names, even though that you have _worked_ with each other. I'd like you to tell each other your name's, if it's not much of a hassle, which really shouldn't be the case."

Scout and Sniper looks at each other with their brows raised, then they look at her.

"We don't really gotta do that, right?" The runner asks.

"The best treatment to your condition is to talk to others; to your friends preferably, and share your feelings and thoughts amongst each other. What is a friend if he does not know the other's name?"

"The kind that's only acquaintances?" Suggests Sniper.

Mercy sighs at the stubbornness of him, _"... You want to get better or not?"_ She asks.

Both the runner and the marksman sigh, then they turn to each other.

"Matthew Mundy," Sniper says, "call me Mat."

"Benjamin Radcliff," the runner speaks, "Ben for short."

"Angela Ziegler," Mercy chirps, happy to begin the treatment.


	5. Chapter 4

_Mid-April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Winston sits on the wooden floor at the terrace of Watchpoint Rio Xingú; the ape's in deep thought. He finds that the serenity and the calming view from the terrace helps him to observe and reassess the current situation with much more effectiveness.

There isn't much else to see than the blue sky and the typical Brazilian forest, so the sound of the breeze in the leaves and the singing of the birds is the main source of the sounds. There are no roads or people, no skyscrapers or trains or no bus-lines; there's only Winston, the breeze and the birds.

What the giant ape is trying to process really, is _everything_ that The Sniper had told him about a supposed war against companies in the later years of the 19th century. He asked among his teammates, and was surprised that none of them have heard about any of it.

Winston was no historian, and he guessed that neither are the other members of Overwatch, but he's simply puzzled that he hadn't heard of the companies — 'Reliable Excavation Demolition', 'Builders League United' and 'Gray Gravel Company'... and neither has he heard of any _gravel war,_ nor this 'Gray' person that seems to be the bigshot in all this.

Wintson takes a deep breath and eyes the woods in front of him. He rearranges his muscular legs, as he feels that they are starting to numb with the way he's been sitting. He knows that he must go back to Athena and check this all up, but after the awakening of Sniper and Scout, he guessed that it would be unwise to leave. Someone strong like the great ape should be around when the mercenaries wake up, to see that nothing gets too out of hand.

Reinhardt, was the other viable option when it came to strength, but Winston feels the need to take care of this himself. He feels responsible for the men's introduction to this new world and their recovery as well, as he is the one that first became known of their existence.

Winston figured that he could ask someone else to do a search of any historical records of what Sniper claimed to him and Athena.

He considers for a moment on who to send on such a task... and after some contemplation, he decides that Carl, Brigitte, Reinhardt, Mirembe and Torbjörn are to leave and be assigned to Watchpoint Gibraltar.

He himself will stay with the mercenaries, together with Mercy, Mei, Tracer and Kimiko. Everyone that's to stay at Rio Xingú are to help keep an eye on the mercenaries... as long as they stay as well as their own chores, of course.

But as Winston sits there, with the decision on who goes where made in his mind, he begins to ponder on how to truly rehabilitate the mercenaries. Sure, Mercy had said that group sessions are a good way to treat these kind of things, but how can these sessions be handled. Should only Mercy be in their presence with them?

No, Winston don't think that will do; these mercenaries are too unpredictable for that. What if they have another flashback and it turns violent?

That is bound to happen in one of the sessions.

Then there is the fact that they don't know anything about these people; what if they are of the violent sort?

Sure, the little of what Winston have seen about Sniper and Scout, the only two to have woken up at this point, they don't seem _that_ violent. Mercy did report that Sniper could be a bit grumpy and easily irritated, but that's about it so far.

Last is the five that's still to wake up.

How are they when it comes to personality, and waking up for the first time since... _a century?_

Winston frowns a bit at his thoughts. He feels worried about this as he considers this to be his responsibility. He's the one who wanted to bring them out of their cryo-sleep, and he's the one that argued with the rest of Overwatch to do it. It is also him, that hoped that these mercenaries are to join Overwatch's cause to protect the world from evil, in any origin, shape or form.

Where else are they to go otherwise? They've been asleep for a full century; they're complete strangers to what the world is today. The last thing they probably knew was who the president of America was... _and that information was completely irrelevant in today's world._

Winston suddenly jerks out of all the questions and worries of his mind when he sees a movement in the corner of his eye.

He turns.

The one who joins him on the terrace is none other than one of the very men that he had thought about.

It's The Sniper.

In the opening of the terrace behind them also stands Mercy.

"He wanted to talk to you," she explains to the great ape, before she gives an approving nod to them both and disappears into the room.

Winston gives a low snort in thanks after her before he eases back where he sits. Sniper stands by the great ape's side in silence, as they watch the greenery together. Seconds goes by as The Sniper doesn't make a move to take a seat or to face the primate, and neither does he open his mouth to make a sound.

Winston gives a sideway glance at him when the quiet mood isn't broken in half a minute.

After a whole solid minute the marksman finally bends down to sit at the wooden terrace floor, with his long, far too dangly legs crossed in front of him. The borrowed overall is still looking way too big and baggy on him, and he hadn't gained any weight from the time alone in his quarters at all, which didn't help in him fitting his borrowed clothing.

They sat there for a moment in silence; Winston waits for Matthew to speak his mind — why he wants to speak to him.

Mat sits, just in search of tranquility from the peace of the forest. However, they both enjoy the calmness that the woods provides.

Winston have read the report of Mercy's first therapy session with Sniper and Scout, and she have also told Winston of their real names. So far it had gone well.

"Winston, I have a proposition," Mat delivers in the end. "But I want to ask a question first."

Winston nods, "Let's hear it."

"You and the other lot in Overwatch helped me by getting me out of that cryo-bed. But not only that. You've given me a place to stay, you provided me food and clothes for nothing in return. Hell, ya buggers even offered me therapy, despite me not needing it..." The last sentence is added with a bit of scorn, as Matthew glares back towards the house.

His attention comes back to the ape at his side quickly. _"I wonder why."_

"We are Overwatch," Winston answers with pride. "We help those in need. _It's what we do."_

"How're you sure that I'm not evil?" Matthew asks after another moment of silence, his words slow and with thought, "You don't know anything about us, you even have trouble finding the most basic info about us. We, or at least, _I_ have told you that we're mercenaries. We could've had any job in the past... killed hundreds of civvies, terrorized entire towns... So why help someone that you don't know even a single thing about?"

Winston ponders on how to answer that.

"... I have a feeling," he begins after a few seconds, "that at least you and Benjamin are a good pair of people. I can't say anything of the other's yet... but of you two? Well, I just _know_ that you aren't bad... _it's a gut feeling._ I assume that none of you would take such jobs with so much eagerness. I even dare say that from what I have seen and heard of you myself, that you might even _avoid_ such jobs if given the opportunity." As Winston speaks, Mat looks away, but even so, the great ape sees a fraction of the strange expression Matthew makes, somewhat of a mix between being unsure and mild guilt.

Winston seems a bit unsure himself, "Wouldn't you?" He asks, and leans in a bit to eye the man up and down.

"Yeah, yeah," Mat quickly says, and faces him with a neutral expression. "Sure I do."

An uncertain bell rings in Winston's head, however faint, and he voices it as well. "Really?"

"Yeah... now I do. I only remembered one time, a job that I regret ever taking. I don't really want to talk about it."

The great ape observes the marksman for a short moment, and decides that he should leave it to Mercy's therapy sessions until he's ready to talk about it.

"All in all, it is just a feeling that makes me convinced that you aren't a bad person. A feeling that I think I share with Mercy-"

"Angela." Mat interrupts.

"Huh?" The great ape is surprised to be cut short by the aussie, even though the single word was been spoken with quite a low voice.

"Her name's Angela," clarifies Mat. "she's told me that."

Winston smiles at the piece of info, _"Ah. You see?_ That is _just_ what I mean! You and Ben _are_ good guys, at least according to Mercy and I... but for the others, I don't really know." He adds.

The marksman smiles as well, gratitude shown in his eyes, "Fine things you did for me that you are still doing, and you have my gratitude too, big guy. I'm sure it's the same for all of us; not only helping us out those beds, but also trying to get us back on our bloody feet. Whatever the others might say — I'd like to return the favor."

The aussie gives an honest smile to the ape.

"I'd like to join Overwatch."

Winston is a bit overwhelmed of the offer. He hoped that at least a few would end up joining Overwatch, hopefully all of them, but for one to ask for it this early?

"Are you sure on this?" The great ape asks. "Don't get me wrong, Overwatch is always in need for new members. But it can be a tough job at times."

Mat only smiles at that, not in the least deterred, "I've handled my good share of rough deals back at my day. I may be more than a 100 years old, mate, but you can bet your arse I can handle the usual troubles." He then gets a contemplative look. "Hmm... I wonder - _how old does that make me?"_ He asks himself, "... I'm guessing somewhere around 170 odd years." He guesses.

"About that," a slightly smiling Winston speaks up, "I think you should wait a little before joining; you should have to build your strength back up before anything."

"Yeah, will do... Although," Mundy says, as his features grows serious, "I'd like to request two small things."

"And that is?"

Matthew puts his one index finger up as he counts the first point. "One: any and all information on either my parents or Gray are to be shared with me as soon as it is discovered." A second finger comes up to join the first one, while the other point is made. "Two: when we find Gray, whether dead or alive, I want to deal with him... _Alone."_

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Gibraltar, Rock of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea_

Mei observes the merry group that she had been sent to Gibraltar with.

Reinhardt, Kimiko, Carl, Mirembe and herself have been sent away to occupy the only other watchpoint in use (other than Watchpoint Rio Xingú).

As soon as the squad enter the building, Mei goes right to business, unlike the others, as she was given a job from Winston; To get to work on all the new information they received from Matthew.

She gets to Winston's interface, and with the help of Athena she quickly gets to work.

First, she searches the names of Matthew's parents, but she's had no luck there, nothing of them comes up on her quest for answers. But, she instead gets several results when she looks up 'Reliable Excavation Demolition' and 'Builders League United'. She also gets information on the Gray Gravel Industry, 2 individuals that go by the name of Redmon and Blutarch Mann, as well as another individual, Gray Mann, at the same time.

According to what she finds, Redmon and Blutarch, opposite to what Mat have told them, have both died of old age... _not_ by murder of their long lost brother.

The two companies, Reliable Excavation Demolition and Builders League United, was absorbed into Gray's own industry.

 _"'Gray lived a good many years after his two brother's,'"_ she reads aloud to herself, _"'And his Corporation was taken over by his daughter, Bianca Mann, upon his death. Today the Gray Gravel Industry is run by Gray's grandson, Tobias Mann. Although the industry was once the leading constructor of robots, they were largely outrivaled by various companies in the 2020's, thus leading them to instead focus on the development and selling of new experimental materials…'"_

She skims through the rest and memorizes the important parts, but she can't say that she can find much more interesting. When she's done she comes to think on Ben, and decides to try if she can find anything on him. But to her disappointment she doesn't, _not one single thing._

As she prepares to leave, an alarm suddenly sounds, and Athena's voice is heard from the computer.

"Mei. I have just gotten word of an attack on an office building in Germany, owned by one of our benefactors," the AI informs as Mei hurries back to look at the pictures that comes up on the screen. The pictures are all of a site that smokes and burns after suffering a ruthless explosion.

 _"It is the duo of Wanted Criminals: Roadhog and Junkrat."_ Athena notifies.

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Leopoldshöhe, Germany_

"Ahhh... Nothing smells better than fresh explosions," the hunched Junkrat sighs after a deep inhale of smoke from the most recent explosion, "Right, Roadhog? Old friend, _old pal?"_

The much bigger man doesn't answer... _Not that he usually speaks anyways,_ but that doesn't stop his much smaller colleague from speaking with him; to ask him questions, only for him to make up his own answers, almost always assuming what the big man would say.

The best of friends always knows each other's answers to a question!

 _"OH, you are absolutely right, mate,"_ Junkrat agrees, "Chocolate ice-cream is impossible to topple!"

Roadhog stares on at his colleague, giving him the usual silence that he was comfortable with, "..."

There is another explosion in the background that makes the unstable ruins of the office building shake.

Junkrat jerks his head towards the way the noise sounded with a confused look, "Huh? I thought that all the charges went off?!" He then faces his friend. "Remind me to double-check next time, would you?"

"..."

Junkrat gives him a wicked smile, "Thanks, mate! Someone could've gotten hurt!" He takes a moment to rethink what he had have said, quickly rephrasing it, "'Of _us',_ I mean." He whispers, "The safety of these suits doesn't bother me too much."

Muttering under his breath, Junkrat approaches the archive lockers, which miraculously survived on the bottom floor. He gets to the closest one and tries to open the drawer to the height of his stomach.

It turns out to be locked and in need of a key.

 _But what's a locked drawer to an explosive-loving maniac?_

 _"Bugger,"_ he mutters, "looks like I need to use some good ol' **bombs** to get this one open!"

Roadhog stares on at his partner, crossing his large arms in disapproval, "..."

"Er- _Right,_ that might burn the stuff inside. Better if we take the whole locker with us! That way it'll be the boss' problem, and not ours!" Junkrat suggests.

Roadhog goes ahead and flings one of the lockers over his shoulder, leaving to put it in the van parked on the street outside.

 _"You know,"_ Junkrat speaks up as the big man comes back to retrieve the second locker, "this new boss of ours, even though he's a suit — he really _feels_ like one of us. One of the guys, a real pal. A good squad-buddy!"

With the new locker on his shoulder Roadhog halts and gives the other man a glance.

"What's that? _Oh, yes,_ I remember the last one. That twat..." he spits at the memory, "But they're not the same! Not at all! _This one is way more honest!"_ he persists.

With his usual silence, Roadhog resumes his walk back to the van, as Junkrat gives his back a strange look.

"I think this new one is just an absolute crackerjack," the smaller man declares to his friend as he comes back for the second time, _"_ _And think about the pay he's giving us! The shiny, twinkly money!"_

Roadhog gives him a stare and says that he was concerned about the subject of payment, finally deciding to speak, breaking his silence.

 _"_ _What 'pay'?"_ Roadhog scowls in his heavily garbled, but still audible tone, _"_ _It's not_ **money** _._ _He pays us in explosives. Guns, and ammo. We are skipping the middleman and all the trouble that comes with it."_ He finishes. With the third and last archive locker over his shoulder, Roadhog heads to the exit while he doesn't even look back to his friend.

"What if we ask for money then?" asks Junkrat as he follows, but stops just a few steps from the big hole they are using as a doorway. His attention is drawn towards a low moan in a pile of rubble, _"Well, we could._ But what could we use the money on, huh? Other than bombs, bombs, _and more bombs!"_ He chuckles maniacally at his odd obsession, "Hehe... BUT SERIOUSLY — _what do we spend it on?"_

He gets closer to the pile to inspect it, and discovers an alive, but gravely injured officeworker buried in it. The creaks in objection from the van's suspension can be heard even from where Junkrat is crouched.

Junkrat gets out one of his homemade mines and puts it on top of the pile before he turns and walks out.

"Ah! Food might be a good thing to spend it on, mate... maybe I should ask for a small sum!"

The both of them climb into the front of the van, Junkrat in the driver's seat and Roadhog in the passanger's seat. The vehicle hums to life and the smaller man stears it gingerly out into the empty road, with all traffic long gone since the booming of the house started.

"A really petty one, for food. For rent too, maybe?"

Roadhog eyes his friend when Junkrat brings out a trigger from his pocket.

"Don't you worry! Whatever the case, we'll be worth a pair of big chocolate ice-creams after this!"

Junkrat presses the trigger, and a last boom echoes throughout the streets. Much of what's left of the ruined office building falls to the ground, and leaves only one big pile of trash, and rubble. Seconds later, the faint sound of police sirens is heard, and a shifting of blue and red lights closes in to the site.

* * *

 _Mid-April, 2082_

 _Location: Somewhere in the Atlantic sea_

"Only three?" The man in gray stares, "There were only three lockers?"

He thought that this was a very low amount of archives of this slim size for an entire office-building, even if they have stored only a part of their documents on paper instead of storing it on USB sticks; the more modern way.

"Yessir!" Junkrat confirms, "Eh... _at least in what was left of the bottom floor,"_ he adds, "it was a little hard to check the other floors, most of them were kind of- maybe, _blown up."_

Currently, the two of them, together with the silent presence of Roadhog, were in the room with the shiny floor and the big window out to the atlantic sea, but otherwise there is no one there.

The view outside the window is a vibrant dark blue, border to pitch black, as they are quite a way down under the surface.

Junkrat's boss observes him as he would an ugly stain in an expensive carpet that refuses to go away; with slight irritation and a conviction that this was only his kind of bad luck.

He slowly nods, "I see... what if they had three lockers on every floor? What if the documents I asked you to get is in one of those?"

Junkrat shrugs, _"I dunno._ _Better luck next time?"_

The gray suit sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in a frown, _"_ _*Ugh* —_ There might not be a next time!" He says irritatingly, "If the papers were in one of the other lockers, then they were either destroyed by your reckless behavior or, if they _miraculously survived,_ are in the hands of the law! They might even be back in the possession of the company by now!"

Junkrat muses on these possibilities for a moment, with a face in great thought. Roadhog behind him shows no sign of anything from where he stands, but that might only be a factor cause of his mask. When it comes to the big criminal, no one can't be sure of anything, with the possible exception of Junkrat; his partner in crime.

Junkrat again, shrugs with little care, _"_ _Oh well._ Then I guess it's a bloody shame then, mate."

The grey suit slightly grumbles under his breath. He wonders if it really was a good plan to send these two... _idiots,_ to retrieve papers, but is then reminded that he doesn't have a ton of options at the moment.

He sent Reaper and Widowmaker to try to recruits the mercs from the 1970's, and his efforts to expand his workforce these few weeks have ended in a big group of foot-soldiers all over the World.

There is a sudden vibration in his pocket. His hand dives down and retrieves a cellphone of slick and elegant design, expensive in appearance and with all the latest software and gadgets installed.

He sees that there is one new text-message.

He opens it up and reads.

["I've heard you need new friends."]

The sender is no-one he can recognize, and he can't get himself to remember ever registering the name in his smartphone.

Yet there is a name where the number should be... the fact remains that the name is completely unknown to the grey suit. It's not even considered a name, _barely even a word,_ and it tips the gray suit off.

 _"_ _Has someone tabbed or hacked into my phone?"_ he asks himself.

His number can't be found in any register or media, and it is only a select few that he's given it to...

"Either someone of the technicians I have let to handle the phone have a quick death-wish, or someone with my number must've been careless and gave it out to someone..." he scowls. _Whatever the case, this is_ **unacceptable** _."_

He goes to his chair and takes a hold of the receiver of the built-in phone that's in one of the armrests and brings it to his ear. He taps one single button, one that connects him to the entire speaker-system in the building, before he speaks.

"Head-of-security, come to my office at once," he requests with poisonous irritation, "I need help to get going on a witch hunt; someone I trusted just decided to make a whole pile of trouble for himself... And yes, I intend to end it with someone being tied up and burned." He must show that these kind of things can't be allowed. He want to make an example, so that he will have absolute obedience of the others. A trifle it might seem now, but what kind of problems can it lead to if someone out there can track him by this pesky phone?

Behind the suit's back, Junkrat gives a confused glance to the bigger man at his side. Roadhog gives no sign of finding this just as little odd as he looks back.

Immediately there is a new text-message.

["I can understand your confusion, but none of the poor totos under your hire is to blame."]

"Look at it as a presentation of what I can do," a female voice says, draped with a Mexican accent, even when there is no woman visible in the room.

All three men look on about from where they stand, in search of the source; Junkrat with a hand on one of his homemade mines that he _always_ carries around, Roadhog with his knuckles up and ready to deliver a punch, and the gray suit with a stone-cold stare as he tightly grips the receiver to his abdomen. His mind races as to who this intruder might be, how the stranger could have gotten not just into a building that shouldn't exist, but _also_ into his office, and who he may have to kill once this incident is all over.

Then, suddenly, there is a purple light by Junkrat's side, opposite from Roadhog.

"Holy hell!" shrieks Junkrat in alarm, jumping back into the arms of his big friend, "Fricking fireworks!" The other two men didn't react as strongly to the surprise, even though both of them jerks just a little from the turn-up.

Although the light is as bright as fireworks, as well as being there and gone as quick as fireworks goes off in the sky, the strange phenomenon had nothing to do with any kind of explosives whatsoever.

In its place stands a woman in ominous black and venomous purple clothes, with a cheeky smile and expectant eyes. Her posture radiates self-determination and pride of her own ability.

The gray suit observes the woman with casual weariness, his cold expression not leaving him for a second. He doesn't move from his chair for a moment, with the receiver in one hand and the cellphone in the other. There is a pause, where the newcomer and the suit eye each other, in wait to see what the other will do.

The gray suit makes the first move, as he slowly and carefully puts the objects away, still refusing to take his eyes off the woman. He then faces her with a stern appearance, but there is something added to his eyes: a faint glimmer of admiration.

 _"I must congratulate you,"_ he speaks slowly, as a shadow of a smile plays on his lips, "you have indeed, done something very hard and _difficult_ with minimum endeavor."

She gives one single, dry chuckle. "Believe me, to find this place and to get in here undetected was just a little bit harder than I first thought it would be," she reveals, before she brings up her hand and brings her index finger and thumb together so that only half a centimeter is between them, _"just a tiny bit."_

"No, no," the gray suit corrects. "I did not intend that, even though _that_ also is grand. I meant something far harder." Here he puts in a theatrical pause, "... You have impressed me in less than half a minute."

"How good, then," the woman smiles, even though it wasn't hard to hear that she thinks herself worth any and all flatter in the world, "That was the goal I went out to achieve."

"So you really care to join?"

"Yes, if you would have me."

The suit's smile becomes more evident. His wish to have more competent people about him, and not only foot-soldiers, that he have stated in his mind have come true all of a sudden. That's something that doesn't happens every day. He believes that this woman speaks the truth. Sure, she may have invaded into his underwater fortress that was supposed to be isolate, and unknown to the rest of the world. She's spied on his conversation and hacked into his phone, and those reasons by themselves are enough to kill her where she stands.

He must confess, though, it has been an effective way to first get his full attention... _and then to impress him._

Unorthodox, but **effective.**

If she were to work for someone, he had means to find out. Besides, he can kill her once her use has been fulfilled. Alternatively though, he could try to find a way to blackmail her to ensure her future cooperation.

Whatever the situation, the grey suit feels content of how the event seems to evolve. This is one more that he can add to the elite of his working force.

"Gladly," he decides. "as it happens, I am recruiting, but I guess that you already knew." He gets a courteous nod as an answer. "To who do I owe the pleasure to hire?"

 _"Sombra, Señor,"_ she answers with her foreign tongue.

"Glad to make your acquaintance. You can call me-"

The grey suit is interrupted by someone entering the room. A guard comes in with his breath caught in his throat.

 _"Sir,"_ the uniformed man huffs as he salutes the gray suit, then goes over to stand in attention, "I came here as fast as I could, sir."

 _"Ah, head-of-security,"_ the grey suit rolls his eyes, obviously sarcastic. "I am so glad that you could join us." He points to the woman. "I don't think you have met Sombra yet, have you?"

"No, sir."

"Oh, to bad. If you have done your job, maybe you would have."

The head-of-security gets a confused look, and looks over to Sombra. She gives him a smirk and a wave, then goes back to enjoy the show. He looks back to the suit, not comprehending the situation. "Sorry, what?"

"Tell me, how could Sombra here hack my phone, get into my headquarters and find her way into my office completely undetected? I guess alone." The suit glances to Sombra to get that last confirmed, and is met with a nod.

The head-of-security gawks at him, unable to believe the question. It takes a moment for him to answer, and when he do the words he speaks sounds like a faint squeak, _"Completely undetected?!"_

The grey suit looks at him with a deadpan look. "Yes... apparently."

The security guard stares bewildered at his boss for five long seconds without a sound, as if he forgot how to speak. Then there goes another five seconds where he moves his mouth, but no noise comes out as if he tries to learn the ability of speech all over again.

"I-I- I will look into the matter," he is able to get out with a squeaky voice, with the knowledge that he might very well not only get to loose his job but also that his ability to work in the security department again might dissapear forever.

Maybe the ability to get a job anywhere _ever_ again.

"You don't have to," the grey suit insists, "there is no further need for any of your services."

Why not blame him? He should have done what he was supposed to.

"Go get your things, and prepare to get shipped of to the mainland."

The former head-of-security is, to mildly put it, shocked. He doesn't move where he stands for a few seconds, and when he finally moves he walks out the door with heavy steps and a heavy heart.

As the now unenployed man have exited the room the suit turns slightly to Junkrat. "Could you accompany him to the destination? Make sure that he gets a... 'warm' departure."

Junkrat, together with Roadhog, have felt quite forgotten where they have stod. At least the smaller of the two have. They have also tended to stare after the man in uniform, as if they have expected more of a show when the news of the dismiss have been revealed. "What?" Junkrat turns to stare at his boss.

"Give him a warm departure. Or, maybe more suitable for your expertise, **explosive** departure."

It takes a moment for Junkrat to understand, that he is supposed to kill him once on solid ground by either setting him on fire or blow him up. Once the revelation comes to him he smiles.

 _"Oh, right!"_ The hunched over man then turns to his bigger friend. "Come on, mate, we have a show to catch."

The duo walks out the door, Roadhog in silent tow after Junkrat. "What do you say? Should we get those chocolate ice-creams we were talking about, now that we got a bit of entertainment and all." That is the last that is heard before the door is shut after them.

Sombra scoffs, "That was cold... Mister...?"

"You can call me Mann."

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Soldier is the one that awakes first after Scout.

Although the two mercenaries who are already awake are present in his room in an attempt to make the whole thing go more easily, things turn out to not go as expected.

Though, Sniper and Scout always expect that _nothing_ can be expected when it comes to the scatterbrain that is Soldier.

Mei and Mercy are ordered to stay outside the room for this one, to leave Winston to handle the situation.

The two women have been bruised enough by Sniper, but that doesn't leave them _completely_ unaffected by what happens inside the room.

"COME AT ME, YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR MECHANICAL COMMIES!" comes a roar from Soldier's room, right before Sniper is lunged upside-down right through the open door with a surprised yelp.

The eyes of Mei and Mercy widen as they see the marksman fly past them, who stands by the opening to observe the progress. A big feat for someone that is all haggard and no excess fat nor muscle, but most of all unexpected. The marksman doesn't get any bad injuries, only a sore back. But afterwards, they figure it should've been expected; after all, it has been the same for Sniper.

"I HAVE A FIST WITH YOUR NAMES ON IT, WHICH WILL SEND ALL OF YOU BACK TO RUSSIA!" Soldier goes on, "WITH REGARDS FROM THE AMERICAN EAGLE!" He don't seem to cramp up at all like Sniper and Scout have done, but goes directly to a deranged battle mode.

Well, for the operatives of Overwatch it sounds deranged; to the mercenaries, it sounds quite normal. It takes Winston to restrain him, together with quite a lot of explaining and coaxing from Sniper and Scout, to make him understand that the robots are not real and that there is no need to punch anyone anywhere. _Especially not the giant ape._

"So the ape is with us?" asks Soldier again just to be sure as he walks out from the room behind Sniper.

The hospital gown on him hides much of what lies underneath, but he is as well thin and scraggy from all the time he has spent frozen in the cryo-bed. Mei and Mercy shuffle away to a safe distance of two meters from the american, both in refusal that Soldier is calm enough, or even _sane_ enough, to go loose among other people.

"Yeah, he is," Scout ensures, as the boy follows behind Soldier.

"And he's not a communist?" Soldier turns his head back to look at Scout. Without the helmet on to cover the man's eyes it looks strange to see his whole face.

"Winston is the most American, uncommunistic bugger there is." Sniper genuinely states.

"I don't really consider myself to be americ-," begins Winston, the last one to exit the room, but is cut off by Scout.

 _"Of course you're American!"_ The boy laughs with just a _tiny_ hint of nervousness. He glances back to the great ape and gives an urgent wink to just act along with it, "Soldier, we're all Americans here!" That only earns him a strange expression from Winston, but the silence that comes to the ape shows that he is willing to go along with this charade.

"If he truly is a member of the greatest country in the history of the earth, he should know how to sing like one," speaks Soldier and halts suddenly to turn towards the bigger primate.

Scout, who is in between the two, only gives the mercenary an unbelieving look, _"What?"_ He shakes his head, "No no no- _Soldier,_ there really ain't no need for singin'."

"If this ape is one true American, then the marines' hymn should come with nature." Soldier declares with confidence, with a just equally confident finger in the air to emphasize his point. Everyone else stares at him with blank faces, unable to comprehend what he even means. Even _Sniper_ turns around to look at him. No one to hear this statement can see the point, much because there is no real _point_ in it.

 _"Oh, for God's sake!"_ Sniper growls after a few seconds. He really hoped for just getting Soldier a pair of clean clothes, a neutral overall that both Scout and the aussie himself have been given, and then just get along with more sensible things.

Here, Soldier turns to argue with Sniper for the reason for and against to actually begin to sing the song in question. The two men begin to discuss this rather loudly, and neither of them seems to notice the low conversation right beside them.

"The marines' hymn?" Winston inquires with a low voice towards Scout.

"The American armed forces medley," answers the boy with a deadpanned eye-roll. _"y'know..._ _'first to fight for the right, and to build the nation's might'."_

The great ape gives a sound of understanding before the both of them give the loud debate in front of them their attention.

"There will be no bloody singing!" Sniper orders with a stern voice.

"But how else are we gonna know if he's an American?!" Asks Soldier. "For all we know he might be a milkdrinking, dresswearing European! Or a damn gook! _Or even a damn commie!"_

"Believe me; Winston is American." Sniper sighs sharply in irritation as he sees that Soldier don't really believe him. The irritation only grows when the uninvited and quite unwanted picture of Winston in a big dress with a gallon of milk in hand appears in his mind.

It is at this moment Scout brightens up with an idea, "Wait, wait, wait, _hold on,"_ the boy begins, and gets the attention of the group. "Ay, Soldier, we're in the future, right?"

"Affirmative!" Blurts Soldier with confidence and stands in attention, a pose that looks nothing but **ridiculous** in the gown. Then, with a little less confidence, he speaks again, "Err, at least that's what Sniper said."

Scout then speaks a bit slower and with more clarity, so to be sure that he sounds more convincing to the ears of the American. As the boy continues he can't stop a smirk at his own idea, which he himself thinks is _brilliant._

"Back before we went to sleep in those friggin' ice-boxes, didn't you say time and time again that America would like, TAKE OVER THE WORLD?" Scout says.

"Absolutely!" Here Soldier stands in attention again, as if not to disgrace the country he is so proud of. "America will turn the world into a better place!"

"Alright, then hear this," here the young man, with a grin that only grows, leans to the side to make eye contact with the taller man behind the american. "Sniper, didn't you tell me before that America did just that?"

"Wha-," Sniper begins with a confused look but stops himself. He quickly gets what Scout is hinting at. "Yeah... _yeah._ That's right," he agrees then and plasters on the most truthful face he can muster, willing to convince Soldier anything so long that the consequence is cooperation from the madman. "Soldier, good ol' mate. The planet 'Earth', has been renamed 'The planet of 'America' about twelve years ago."

Soldier turns to stare at Sniper for a moment in silence, then he looks at Scout. After a few mute seconds he stands back in attention with a hand salute of respect, "Glory to the planet of America! I always knew we would succeed one day!"

Mei, Mercy and Winston can only stare, dumbfounded at the entire scene, while Sniper and Scout only wave at it before the two continue to escort Soldier onwards. After just a few short moments Winston regains himself and scrambles to catch up. The big ape positions himself in the end of the line, so that he have a good view of all three of the newcomers. Shortly after comes Mercy and Mei.

Mei leans in towards Mercy as they approaches the others. "I am beginning to seriously doubt the decision of letting them out of those cryo-beds," she whispers to the other woman with a hand over her mouth before she leans back. The doctor only looks grim and troubled as she gets past the line and takes up the lead, as she wonders if a few of these men really are _mad and unstable..._

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

Soldier had found, through some kind of miracle, a helmet, which he wears together with the overall he received from the Overwatch agents. And now he, together with Sniper and Scout, eats lunch in the dining hall.

"Sniper!" Soldier booms, even though they are in the same room and just a few meters apart. The marksman wonders what idiocy the American wants to discuss and frowns a little when he turns to the incoming Soldier, "What day did the planet of America form?" the American asks.

The Aussie gives a sigh and observes Soldier with a glare, all of which the other man either misses completely or ignores, _"Why in the blazes would you want to know that?"_

"I want to know what day I should celebrate," he explains, "I have asked everyone else, but none of those ignorant bastards could answer. But since everyone's an American, they should know what Planetary Day is."

Sniper stares at the other man, as he fails to have absolutely no comprehension of what he's just heard.

"Planetary Day?" he asks, raising a brow.

"That is the name of the day when the planet of America was created, of course!" The answer comes as if it is something obvious and self-explanatory.

For Sniper it is far from obvious, but after a moment of a confused silence from him, he decides that there's no use in disagreeing with him.

He just need to make up a date for said _'event'._

"Err... _it's in February."_ Sniper decides, a choice of month that he picked just because it will occur the year after. He only hopes that Soldier won't remember this next year.

 _"February?!"_ Soldier cries with genuine shock in his voice and bewilderment on his face, "That means I've missed it this year! Not to mention for the last twelve years too!"

Sniper rolls his eyes, _"Whatever,"_ he mutters under his breath, not at all concerned over the matter. He stand up and walks away.

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

The fourth mercenary to wake up is The Spy, but he doesn't do it in a way that could be compared to his comrades brash awakenings. He experiences other problems, other than those flashbacks that seem to be relatable with each one of the mercenaries... In fact, his problems didn't have much to do with PTSD or any other mental illness at all.

It is the kind of trouble that the unhealthy low weight 100 years in a cryo-bed gives, together with a slight, but constant flow of a chemical cocktail.

After the long time it takes for the still slumbered mercenaries to wake up, Mercy thinks it's the safest option to put monitoring equipment on them. A heart-rate monitor, for example, would be in due for an individual that's been in a cryo-bed for a century.

And it is, with good luck too, as just a few days later she jumps in alarm when a noise blares at her computer screen in her office. To her dismay she sees that the masked mercenary is in cardiac arrest. Only seconds after finding out about the situation, she throws herself into the room where the man lies, a defibrillator in hand.

It was a close call, but Mercy was able to restart his heart and stabilize him.

Spy shows the most restrain of the whole bunch when the weight of the PTSD hits him.

He doesn't make an effort to attack, but neither does he let anyone out of his sight where he stands pressed up against the wall.

Scout chooses to stay outside the room with Mei and Mercy after he's witnessed what happened to Sniper the last time. Soldier seems split in the choice of either participating or staying out of it, but finally decides that standing in the doorway as a guard would be a suitable decision in case Spy would make a run for it.

Sniper, on the other hand, gives it a try, as he knows that he might be the most qualified between himself, Scout and Soldier. He personally knows that it's better to be in the presence of an accomplice, and an _aware_ one at that — Scout and Soldier don't have as much as a high understanding of the current situation their in when compared to Sniper.

He actually scowls a bit at the fact that he thinks himself as go-to man to calm down a RED mercenary... _and for that mercenary, to conveniently be The Spy?_

Of all the RED mercenaries, he wished that _Spy_ was the last one to wake up.

In the end though, Sniper, together with Winston, is able to bring the frail Spy down, and to give the man a state of comfort; comfort where it's high enough to make him consider _not_ putting a knife to one's back as soon as it is turned his way.

This time Winston is not required to wrestle someone down and restrain them on the floor, which is a good change. The Aussie's just a bit concerned that the man had so little to say about the situation. The way Spy usually likes to comment on things.

 _ESPECIALLY_ _with sneers and remarks on the good old van._

 _"_ _Mèrde..."_ Spy mutters beneath his breath, "If the contract between RED and I is broken, then I will personally find my way out of here." He says as soon as he walks out of the room, just right after giving a suspicious glare at Winston.

"Hmm... you don't plan to stay?" Sniper asks, slight surprise in his voice.

He shakes his head, "Non. I do not. I have matters to tend to; a new world to get my head wrapped around, for example."

"But-"

"No buts, Sniper. As to tomorrow, I will leave."

Matthew doesn't know why he was even trying to talk sense to him. If he wants to go, let him.

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

After the whole ordeal with Spy, The Demoman wakes up, coincidentally awakening from his frozen slumber the same day as one of his colleagues.

His awakening is the second worse when it comes to shouting, only beaten by Soldier in _volume._

But what he comes _first_ in though, is the **swearing** — _vulgar and obscene language galore!_

There is a line of curses from him when he wakes up, even managing to send a small blush into the cheeks of his colleagues. They are, at the very least, the ones who are supposed to know him and be used to his crude ways of expressing himself, so one can imagine how the members of Overwatch reacts!

Scout insists to stay outside the room again, and Soldier chooses to guard the door.

Spy, on the other hand, refuses to leave his living quarters. The Frenchman is yet to give any reason of explanation for his isolated behavior, but the others guess that it might be his way of coping... _strange, however._

It's not every day that one will wake up from a forced cryo-sleep to discover that a full century has passed, and yet everything that's happened to them with Gray is still fresh in their minds.

Demoman goes to attack too, just as Sniper and Soldier have done before him. But to the marksman's big relief the Scotsman aims for someone else.

 _"_ _I killed the bloody Loch Ness Monster!"_ He declares triumphantly as he tries to take a swing at Winston, "I ain't afraid of a wee 'tin men, nor Gray!"

In the end, Winston gets a hold of him, and with a lot of explaining, he too, is brought down to earth.

A big difference from the other cases is that Sniper promised a bottle of beer in the end. The Scotsman receives the bottle soon enough, although he complains that the brand served to him is not as good as the one he usually drinks.

* * *

 _Early April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Gibraltar, Rock of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea_

Winston takes a seat on the giant tire that works as a chair in front of the big, inhumanely smart A.I., which is Athena. He's traveled there to both greet the team of Overwatch agents that have been assigned to _Gibraltar_ and to further search for the information that surrounds the squad of mercenaries.

He's also here to see who this _Gray_ is, and to dig up some info about Redmond and Blutarch.

"Athena, please make a search for anyone of importance with the last name of 'Mann', and try to filter it so that it shows it by which was the most active, _in any way,_ during the 1970's." He explains to the A.I.

 _"Searching..."_ Athena responds, and after a few short seconds, a list shows up with a few names on the display.

Three of them are, indeed, Gray, Redmond and Blutarch. Winston wonders what might've been written about their activities and doings around 1971.

"Excellent. Give me a short summary of what they did in the timeframe between 1970 and 1972, please."

"Redmond's and Blutarch's businesses have been in deadlock with eachother over who will lead in their main production, which are in hats and clothes. This was the case up to the month of February. Year — 1970, when the two suffered an untimely death, forcing their businesses to close down. In the meantime of their deadlock, the industry of Gray had exponentially grown, and took over much of the buisness that Redmond and Blutarch left behind, although this wasn't Gray's main income. The industry of Gray operated well after 1972."

"Hmm..." Winston hums; Athena's analysis confirming a little of what Matthew has told him.

"What was Gray's main income during this time?"

"Robot parts."

"When was Gray industries shut down?"

"Gray industries hasn't shut down. It has only reformed into a new company in 1994 as the Omnica Corporation. As the reformation took place, it started to create fully functioning robots."

Winston looks away in deep thought; he wonders if this really is _true,_ as according to Matthew and the other mercenaries, Gray industries had created fully functioning robots far before 1994...

Bewildered by the A.I's findings, he tilts his glasses and ponders for more.

 _"Athena, what else can you tell me?"_ He asks after a moment, looking back at the big screen.

"Unfortunately, there isn't much more written down about these individuals and Corporations in the specified timeline," Athena answers.

The great ape leans back with a sigh. He remembers Matthew's words of how he would take revenge on the man, even if Gray lived or not, and decides that there might be some information about Gray's death.

"May you tell me when Gray Mann died?"

"In December... 1982."

"Where does his body lie buried?"

"There is no publicly known knowledge about this subject."

That strikes Winston as a little odd... _suspicious_ _, but he doesn't spend much thought on it. Instead his mind settles on another question._

"Who took over his company?"

"His son."

"What's the son's name?"

"There is no publicly known knowledge about this subject."

That strikes Winston as very odd, and _**Very Suspicious.**_

Why wouldn't that be publicly known? Who might this son be?

"But surely, this son can't be alive today to supervise the company?" He asks Athena.

"No. Gray's grandson is now the CEO for Omnica Corporation."

"And what is his name?"

 _"Tobias Mann."_

* * *

 _Middle April, 2082_

 _Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil_

"Please, Sir! We can help you," Mercy tries as the Frenchman walks out of the building, "Why don't you stay just a few days? See how it is?"

The woman tried coaxing The Spy to stay for several minutes, but nothing she says seems to change his mind.

But at her last words, he stops and turns around, _"Madame,_ I am truly sorry that I might have been rude or not clear enough, but I will not stay. I have but only one goal right now in my life, and that is a goal which I can best complete alone."

Mercy raises a brow, "And what might that goal be?"

 _"To find Gray, le meurtrier,"_ he scowls, "and tear him appart, limb from limb, for what he has did to us." The words are said with such anger, with such passion, that Mercy even gets a uncomfortable shot down her spine. She might just believe that Spy was genuine with his words; to torture Gray by just tearing him apart while still conscious, and _very much alive..._

"You can't be so _angry... so ruthless..."_ she says, as she is against such horror.

He lits a cigar and exhales cancer with a low mutter...

 _"Believe me, Madame. I have_ ** _never_** _been more so than before."_

With that he turns his back towards her, and walks away, his steps silent, and determined.

* * *

 **I just want to tell you that after this chapter there will be shorter sequences, as it seems that I can't really write such long texts anymore.**


End file.
